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Received by bequest from 
Albert H. Lybyer 
Professor of History 
University of Illinois 
1916-1949 


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Great Books as Life- 
Teachers 





By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. 


—— 


GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE~-TEACHERS 
STUDIES OF CHARACTER, REAL AND IDEAL 
r2mo, cloth, gilt top, 


Tenth Edition 
THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE 
A STUDY OF SOCIAL SYMPATHY AND SERVICE 
12mo, vellum, gilt top, $1.25 


Sixteenth Edition 
A MAN’S VALUE TO SOCIETY 
STUDIES IN SELF-CULTURE AND CHARACTER 
12mo, vellum, gilt top, $1.25 


Sixth Edition 
FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY 
STUDIES FOR ‘* THE HOUR WHEN THE IMMORTAL HOPE 
BURNS LOW IN THE HEART” 
Long 16mo, 50 cents; art binding, gilt top, 
boxed, 75 cents 


Fourth Edition 
HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED 
A STUDY OF THE ATROPHY OF THE SPIRITUAL SENSE 
Quiet Hour Series, 18mo, cloth, 25 cents 


oe 


BOOKLETS (In Press.) 
Each, 50 cents 
I. Ricut Livinc as a Fine Art. A study of 

Channing’s Symphony 

II. Rogsert Louis STEvENsoN’s CHRISTMAS SER- 
Mon. A Study of the Ideal Life. 

III. SHaAxkeEsPEARE’s CounsELs TO LAERTES. A Poet’s 
Rules for a Successful Life. 

IV. Joun Rusxin’s Ourtoox Upon Youtu as A 
Great OpporTUNITY 





Great Books as Life- 


Teachers 


Studies of Character 
Real and Ideal 


By 


Newell Dwight Hillis 


Author of ‘*The Investment of Influence,” ‘* Man’s 
Value to Society,” etc 


‘‘Ideas are often poor ghosts; but sometimes they are 
made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they 
touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad 
sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; then their 
presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and 
we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is 


drawn to flame,”’ 
Siras MARNER. 


Chicago New York Toronto 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


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FOREWORD 


For some reason our generation has closed 
its text-books on ethics and morals, and 
opened the great poems, essays, and novels. 
Doubtless for thoughtful persons this fact 
argues, not a decline of interest in the funda- 
mental principles of right living, but a desire 


».to study these principles as they are made flesh 
~and embodied in living persons. The leaders 


in literature have their supremacy less through 


. the charm of a faultless style than because 
» they discuss problems old as life itself—prob- 


\ ems of love friendship, and passion, problems 


of ambition and the desire for money, office, © 

» and good name, problems of temptation and 
sin, problems of the soul’s wreckage, and its 
recovery also. It is often said that literature 


' is the greatest of the fine arts, and certainly 


© it is of all the arts the wisest and most inspir- 
ing, serving at once as tutor, guide, and 
_ friend. In this era, when fiction is increas- 
“ingly the medium of amusement and instruc- 


tion, and when the great poets and essayists 


are becoming the prophets of a new social 


5 


Foreword 


order, it seems important to remember that 
the great novelists are consciously or uncon- 
sciously teachers of morals, while the most 
‘fascinating essays and poems are essentially 
books. of aspiration and _ spiritual culture. 
Lest the scope of these studies be misunder- 
stood, it should be said that the author 
approaches these volumes from the view- 
point of a pastor, interested in literature as a 
help in the religious life, and seeking to find 
in these writings bread for those who are 
hungry, light for those who are in darkness, 
and life for those who walk in the shadow of 
death. Leaving to others the problems of 
literary criticism, these studies emphasize the 
importance of right thinking in order to right 
conduct and character, and the uses of great 
books as aids and incentives to the higher 
Christian life. 
NEWELL DwicuTt HILLIs. 


Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
October 25, 1899. 


CONTENTS 


I 


The New Times, and the Poets and 5 Gian 
as Prophets of a New Era 


IJ 


John Ruskin’s **Seven Lamps of Architecture’”’ 
as Interpreters of the Seven Laws of Life 
—A Study of the Tee of Character 
Building ; ; 


III 


George Eliot’s Tito, in ‘* Romola’?—A Study 
of the Peril of ‘Tampering with Conscience 
and the Gradual Deterioration of Character 


IV 
Hawthorne’s ‘‘ Scarlet Letter’’ and the Retrib- 
utive Workings of Conscience—A Study 
of the Necessity and Nobility of Repent- 


ance, and the Confession of Sin 


V 


Victor Hugo’s *¢ Les Miserables’>——-The Battle 
of the Angels and the Demons for Man’s 
Soul. How Jean Valjean was Recovered 
from Passion and Sin to Christian Service 
and Self-sacrifice . 


VI 


Tennyson’s ‘‘Idylls of the King’’—An Out- 
look upon the Soul’s Epochs and Teachers 


PAGE 


15 


shy 


63 


89 


11g 


r53 


Vil 
The Tragedy of the Ten-Talent Men—A 
Study of Browning’s ‘*Saul’’ . ; 
Vill 


The Memoirs of Henry Drummond, and the 
Dawn of an Era of Friendship between 
Science and Religion 


IX 
The Opportunities of Leisure and Wealth— An 
Outlook upon the Life of Lord Shaftesbury 
xX 
The Biography of Frances Willard, and the 
Heroes of Social Reform—A Study of the 
Knights of the New Chivalry . : 
XI 
Blaikie’s Life of David Livingstone—A Study 
of Nineteenth-Century Heroism : 
XII 


The Christian Scholar in Politics—A Study of 
the Life of William Ewart Gladstone 


181 


207 


231 


255 


279 


5°9 





sta Times, and the Poets and Es- 
te os as Prophets of a New Era 


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In inorganic and material nature there is an im- 
pulse, whatever it may be, by which things unfold 
and work steadily toward higher excellence. It is 
with immense waste, it is circuitous, slow, with some- 
thing of retroaction; but the unfolding of nature by 
this mute and latent tendency to go toward a better 
future, leavens the world like yeast, and develops it 
as well. This is the spirit of the ages, the genius of 
the universe. All creation is on the march, The 
stars are revolving. The dead crust of the earth 
feels the necessity of moving. The whole vegetable 
kingdom is moving onward and upward. The animal 
kingdom, too, keeps step, unconscious of the impel- 
ling cause. Man, as if he heard the music drowsily 
and afar off, joins the strange procession, and strug- 
gles on and upward also. 

It is a strange march of creation, moving to unheard 
music, with unseen banners, to some great enterprise. 
When it shall finally encamp and hang out the ban- 
ners of victory, no one knoweth but He who liveth in 
eternity, before whom a thousand years are but as 
one day, and one day as a thousand years.—HENRY 
WARD BEECHER. 


I 


THE NEW TIMES, AND THE POETS AND ES- 
SAYISTS AS PROPHETS OF A NEW ERA 


The pledge of the ‘‘New Times’’ is the 
promise, ““In the last days I will pour out 
my spirit on all flesh.’ Therefore ‘‘Great 
Pan’’ is not dead, morals are not sta- 
tionary, inspiration is not ancient history, 
and the Bible is not closed. Men have 
been telling us that God once pitched His 
tents close beside the tents of Abraham 
and Moses. In those far-off days He made 
friends with each sage and seer. But it is 
said centuries have passed since the divine 
form withdrew from the earthly scene. 
And, lo, comes this divine overture! God’s 
wine is freshly poured. Each is to be a 
new-born bard. Inspiration is to speak in 
each voice, as song bubbles in the lark’s 
throat. Before the dullest eyes ‘‘the vision 
splendid’’ dawns. Each day is to be deluged 
with divinity. Rifts are made in the clouds, 

15 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


signals are hung over the _ battlements, 
voices from the sky come and keep coming. © 
Each man is challenged to make ready fora 
divine invasion. And God is not ‘‘of old,’’ 
but is.as new as the last apple blossom, as 
fresh as the last bud or babe. The divine 
dew is not burned off the grass. The divine 
light has not faded from the sky. The 
rustle of divine garments is still in the ear. 
What God was, He is. What He did, 
He does. What He said, He says. It is 
little that of old He helped Moses, if He no 
longer helps men. The strength of our 
vineyards is not that once the sun warmed 
the Valentian hills. The clusters ripen be- 
cause the all-maturing sun comes to-day, 
and keeps coming. It is much that God 
spake to man centuries ago, but it is more, 
that while He still speaks, the poets and 
patriots muse, and the sacred fires burn. 
To our generation God comes, pouring out 
His heart in tidal waves, making each man 
a sage, each youth a seer, each handmaiden 
a prophet of better days and higher things. 
To-day men are saying God is ancient 
history. Gone forever the age of poetry 
and romance and heroism! No more 
16 


The Prophets of a New Era 


Shakespeares! No more Dantes! Genius 
has forsaken the temple. Hollow-eyed, 
she haunts the market-place. Science is 
cold and dead. Ours is the age of hum- 
drum and realism. At home the critics tell 
us Emerson and Lowell and Longfellow 
are gone, and have left no successors. 
Abroad men mourn for Browning, whose 
torch, falling, flickered out. Tennyson, 
rising in a heavenly chariot out of the temple 
of song, forgot to cast his mantle upon 
some waiting Elisha, but carried the divine 
garment into the realm beyond the clouds. 
In music, Wagner is dead, dust is thick upon 
his harp, and the new music does but re- 
echo the old melody. In fiction, the pes- 
simists tell us, the rosy tints of idealism 
have faded out, leaving only the old gray 
morn. ‘“‘It only remains for us,’’ adds the 
art critic, ‘‘to copy the nymphs and the 
madonnas of old.’’ ‘‘The age of great 
editors and the molding of communities has 
gone,’’ echoes the journalist. ‘‘Let us be 
content to report the dry-as-dust facts of 
life.’’ 

No more eloquence in statesmanship, for 
Webster and Gladstone and Lincoln have 

17 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


passed away. No more oratory at the bar; 
henceforth only moldy precedents. No 
more passion in the pulpit, for Beecher and 
Brooks and Liddon and Spurgeon have no 
successors. No more liberty in theology, 
for saith some General Assembly: ‘‘In 
Wesley or Calvin God reached His limits. 
He is unequal to another Augustine. The 
book of theology is closed. Henceforth if 
any man adds unto or takes away from our 
Confession, let his name be taken out of 
our book of ecclesiastical life.’” No more 
creative work, only copying, annotating, and 
criticising. The divine resources, overgen- 
erous to men of yesterday, have no full 
tides for all flesh to-day. Reasoning thus, 
pessimism proclaims exhaustion in the infi- 
nite. Conservatism becomes atheistic. God 
is bound up in manuscripts, as Lazarus was 
wrapped in grave-clothes. But God is a 
seed, not a dying leaf. God isa rosy dawn, 
not a falling star. God is a flaming sun, 
not the astronomy that describes it. God _ 
is a living voice, not the creed that explains 
Him. God is flaming, eternal truth, not 
the manuscripts in which some sage once 
wrote. His outpoured spirit that began 
18 


The Prophets of a New Era 


as a trickling stream 1s become a river 
‘‘deep enough to swim in.’’ 

In a world like ours it ought not to seem 
strange that God hath kept His best wine 
of civilization until the last of the feast. 
Everything in nature and history proclaims 
this as His working principle. Science tells 
us that our earth, now waving with harvests 
from Maine to Oregon, began its history as 
cold, dead rock. Slowly the scant soil grew 
deep. Huge billows of fire melted down 
the granite peaks; the glaciers ground down 
the bowlders; the summers and winters 
pulverized rock into soil that was shallow 
and poor. And when the scant plant life 
began, it carried forward this enriching work; 
the bush shook down its leaves, the tree gave 
its trunk to decay, the clouds gave rain, the 
snows gave their gases, until at last the soil 
became rich and deep, and earth was all 
glorious with fields and forests. And the 
animal life, too, began at nothing and 
increased in kind and dignity. After the 
snail that crawled came the bird that flew, 
the beast that walked, the deer that ran. 
Last of all came man, lord over all. Soci- 
ety also has moved from the little to the 

19 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


large, and the poor to the rich. Slowly 
man’s hut journeyed toward the house, his 
forked stick toward the steam plow, his 
blundering speech toward the orator’s elo- 
quence, the whistler’s notes toward the 
deep-toned organ, the smoking altars toward 
the glorious temple, the reign of force toward 
the rule of right. So slow has the upward 
movement been, that man must needs pro- 
tect himself against pessimism by remem- 
bering that with God ‘‘a thousand years are 
as one day.’’ 

The individual life also re-emphasizes 
this principle. The youth begins indeed 
with rushing tides of hope and inspira- 
tion, but moving on toward his maturity the 
freshness and innocence of his earlier days 
do not die out, but the morning splendor 
strengthens into the richer, fuller noon. 
Surveying history, the scholar sees that the 
centuries have not been growing darker, 
drearier, and worse. Man’s march has been 
upward and forward until our earth is all’ 
afire with a glory that burns brighter and 
brighter. Society is not like Wordsworth’s 
child that came ‘‘ trailing clouds of glory’’ 
that died out into the light of common day. 


20 


The Prophets of a New Era 


Man did not begin with a great storehouse 
filled with treasure. Mankind began with 
scant resources, and slowly moved on tow- 
ard these days, when society’s granaries 
are well-nigh overflowing. Each new era 
brings new inspirations. God’s method 
always is to surprise men by bringing forth 
the best wine at the last of the feast. Each 
new century wins so many new tools, arts 
and industries that in contrast the preceding 
one seems like an age of darkness, even as 
the sun makes the electric light cast a 
shadow. 

Since God hath pledged to society new 
leaders for new emergencies, what are the 
signs of their coming? What go we out to 
see? If we ask history to instruct us, we 
shall see that every prophet foretelling new 
times has had three characteristics. He is 
a seer and sees clearly. He is a great heart 
and feels deeply. He is ahero and dares 
valiantly. But vision-power is the first and 
last gift. That vision and outlook God has 
given to every Moses and Elijah, to every 
John and Paul, and with instant skill they 
have laid the finger upon the diseased spot 
in the social life. But it is not enough that 


21 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the seer has the vision that sees. Zola 
can describe, Balzac can picture, James 
can photograph deeds and traits. But these 
shed notears. They feel no heartache. They 
paint, but do not pity. With solemn pag- 
eantry of words Gibbon caused the Roman 
centuries to pass before each reader. The 
mind of this great historian worked with the 
precision of a logic engine—cold, smooth, 
and faultless. But Carlyle’s eloquence is 
logic set on fire. What his mind saw his 
heart also felt. All the woe, and pathos, 
and tragedy of the French Revolution swept 
in billows over him, and broke his heart. 
Gibbon worked in cold, white light. Car- 
lyle dipped his pen in his heart’s blood. 
Therefore Carlyle’s history is a seething fire. 
But Gibbon’s is only the picture of a fire— 
mere canvas and paint. 

Moreover, the prophet who is guided of 
God adds to the great mind and the sym- 
pathetic heart a third quality. Every Paul 
and John, every Savonarola and Luther, 
has had a consuming passion for right- 
eousness. Purity has been the crowning 
quality of all the epoch-making men. For 
lack of righteousness Bacon lost his leader- 

22 


The Prophets of a New Era 


ship. While his head was in the clouds 
his feet were in the mire. So great was 
Goethe’s genius that he sometimes seems 
like one driving steeds of the sun, but 
self-indulgence took off his chariot wheels. 
Therefore the German poet has never been 
to his century all that Milton was to 
his age. During his life Goethe always 
kept two friends busy—the one weaving 
laurels for his brow, the other cleaning mud 
from his garments. But Paul, striding the 
earth like a moral Colossus, braving kings, 
daring armies, toppling down thrones, set- 
ting nations free, has dwelt apart from 
iniquity. John and Paul, Hampden and 
Pym, seem like white clouds floating above 
the sloughs from which they rise. Great 
was the intellectual genius of Moses and 
Paul! Wondrous, too, their sympathy for 
human woe and pain! But their supremacy 
was chiefly moral genius. In them reason 
and affection dwelt close beside conscience, 
and were bound up in one powerful person- 
ality, as light and heat are twisted together 
in each beam of the all-maturing sun. 
Heaven’s most precious gift to earth is ‘‘the 
soul of a man actually sent down from the 
23 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


bf 


skies with a God’s-message to us’’; and 
these are his credentials: vision-power, sym- 
pathy, sincerity, and zeal for righteous- 
ness.* 

Now, if these are indeed the signs of the 
prophets, then of a truth hath God sent seers 
unto our age and land. Consciously or un- 
consciously, the divine tides have been poured 
out upon our authors. Our writers are be- 
‘ coming prophets. A new spirit like a summer 
atmosphere is sweetening all our literature. 
In reading the works of Cicero or Seneca one 
must glean and glean for single humanitarian 
sentiments. Their writings are exquisite in 
form and polished like statues, but they are 
without heart or humanity. Even English 
literature, from Fielding and Smollet down 
to Pope and Dryden, teems with scorn and 
sneers for the uneducated poor. The works 
of Sidney Smith are filled with contempt- 
uous allusions to the vulgar herd. 

Until recently the English poets purged 
their pages of all peasants, and the novelists 
will have for hero no man less than a squire, 
and deal chiefly with lords and ladies. But 
to-day the people, with their woes and 


*Carlyle’s Heroes and Hero-Worship, page 274. 
24 


The Prophets of a New Era 


griefs, have found a standing in literature. 
A new spirit has been “‘poured out.’’ The 
new era began with ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”’ 
when a slave stood forth as a candidate for 
hero-worship. Then Dickens became the 
knight errant of each ‘‘Oliver Twist,’’ and 
society began to hear “‘the bitter cry of the 
children.’’ All literature has become per- 
meated with sympathy for the under classes. 
Great authors no longer look with deri- 
sion upon those underneath them, and 
none dare insult ‘‘the common people.’’* 
A host of writers like Victor Hugo and 
George Eliot and Charles Kingsley and 
Walter Besant have come in to give their 
whole souls to softening the lot of human- 
ity. To-day all literature is working for the 
once despised and unbefriended classes. 
Moreover, books that have no enthusiasm 
for humanity are speedily sent to the garret. 
Society cares less and less for work of artistic 
finish and more and more for books filled 
with sympathy and enthusiasm for man. 
In modern literature the books that give 
promise of abiding are those that preach the 


*In another generation, the expression “the com- | 
mon people” will give place to “the people.” 
25 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


gospel of humanity to the poor. Verily, 
our authors have become prophets! 

Our greatest thinkers also, like Ruskin 
and Carlyle, Emerson and Lowell, Brown- 
ing and Tennyson, have ceased to be poets 
and essayists, and have become seers. A 
divine something is making each lyre sacred. 
Our singers are giving themselves to lifting 
up those ‘‘fugitive ideals’’ the pursuit of 
which makes man’s progress. God has 
always stayed the ages upon some bard or 
singer, and breathed His purposes and provi- 
dences through parables and poems. And 
in our day He has caused Emerson to stand 
forth a veritable prophet, telling each indi- 
vidual that being is better than seeing; tell- 
ing the orator and publicist that it is good 
for a man to have a hearing, but better for 
him to deserve the hearing; telling the 
reformer that the single man, who indomi- 
tably plants himself upon his divine instincts 
and there abides, will find the whole world 
coming around to him. And Carlyle also | 
was God’s prophet—a seer stormy indeed 
and impetuous, with a great hatred for lies 
and laziness, and a mighty passion for truth 
and work; lashing our shams and hypoc- 

26 


The Prophets of a New Era 


risies; telling our materialistic age that it 
was going straight to the devil, and by a 
vulgar road at that; pointing out the abyss 
into which luxury and licentiousness have 
always plunged. Like Elijah of old, Car- 
lyle loved righteousness, hated cant, and 
did ever plead for justice, and mercy, and 
truth. If his every sentence was laden with 
intellect, it was still more heavily laden 
with character. To the great Scotchman 
God gave the prophet’s vision and the 
seer’s sympathy and scepter. 

Even our greatest art critic also has be- 
come a prophet. By acclamation we vote 
Ruskin the first prose writer of his century. 
But he has his fame because of his work as 
a social reformer, rather than as an art 
critic. The heart of Ruskin’s message is: 
life without industry is guilt; that industry 
without art is brutality; that men cannot 
eat stone nor drink steam; that the apples 
of Sodom and the grapes of Gomorrah, the 
daintiest of ashes and the nectar of asps will 
feed no man’s strength; that the making of 
self-sufficing men is a business worthy the 
ambition of cities and states; that ten-talent 
men returning to give an account of their 


a7 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


stewardship can never thrust gold into God’s 
hands; that man lives not alone by tending 
cattle and tending corn, but by the manna 
of God’s wondrous words and works; that 
justice and truth and love alone are able 
to turn this desert earth into the garden of 
God until all the valleys are covered with vine- 
yards and the shouts of the happy multi- 
tudes ring around the wine-press and the 
well. 

Here is Lowell, also, telling us that upon 
the open volume of the world, with a 
pen of sunshine and destroying fire, the 
inspired present is even now writing the 
annals of God, and that while ‘‘the old 
Sinai, silent now, is only a common moun- 
tain, stared at by elegant tourists and 
crawled over by hammering geologists,’’ 
there are tables of a new law among the 
factories and cities, where in this wilderness 
of sin each leader is a prophet of a new 
social order, and where 
New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient 

good uncouth; 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
abreast of truth. 
Lo, before us gleam her campfires! We ourselves 
must pilgrims be; 
28 


The Prophets of a New Era 


Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the 
desperate winter’s sea, 

Nor attempt the future’s portal with the past’s blood 
rusted key. 


If now we examine the tendency of inven- 
tion and the mechanical arts, we shall find 
that even tools have become evangelists and 
machines prophets of a new day. From 
every quarter come voices foretelling an 
age of wealth, and happiness, and comfort. 
Many feel that we are upon the threshold 
of new and wondrous mechanical discover- 
ies. Already science has fashioned sixty 
steel slaves for every family. Edison thinks 
the time is rapidly approaching when this 
number is to be increased to two hundred. 
But each tool is ordained of God for the 
reinforcement of manhood. Every time a 
river is enslaved a thousand men are set 
free. Every time an iron wheel is mastered 
a thousand human muscles are emancipated. 
In nature God’s machines are called natural 
laws. Man’s natural laws are his machines. 
And while the new conveniences have 
brought an increase of happiness and com- 
fort to the rich, they have done a thousand- 
fold more for the poor. There never has 
been an age when the rich could not travel 

29 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


rapidly. But steam enables the poorest 
man to travel rapidly. 

Always the rich could wear warm gar- 
ments, but the looms gives soft raiment to 
the poor. Always the rich could buy 
books. In the tenth century the Countess 
of Anjou gave two hundred sheep, one 
load of wheat, one load of rye, and one 
load of millet for a volume of sermons writ- 
ten bya German monk. Now our people 
buy the works of our greatest essayists, novel- 
ists, and poets for one penny, ortwo. The 
new printing presses have placed all the clas- 
sics within the reach of the poorest. Chiefly 
is invention refining the multitude through 
the diffusion of the beautiful. The time 
was when only the prince could afford a 
_ painting. Now photography multiplies “‘the 
masters,’’ and during the long winter even- 
ings, while the tired body rests, the illus- 
trated paper causes the pyramids and tem- 
ples and palaces and mountains and rivers 
of the earth to pass before the fascinated 
eye and mind. The sense of beauty once 
condensed in painting or statue or cathedral 
is now diffused. It is sprinkled upon the | 
floor; it hangs upon the walls; it adorns the 

30 


The Prophets of a New Era 


tables; it enriches the chambers of affection; 
it refines and sweetens the universal life. 
Indeed, the workingman of to-day enjoys 
comforts that were the despair of barons 
and princes of three hundred years ago. 
And each new discovery seems not so much 
to bring power to the strong and rich as to 
toil in the interests of the weak and help- 
less. As in the olden days Jesus Christ 
approved Himself by preaching the gospel to 
the poor, so now every convenience comes 
in, having this divine sanction. The poems 
of to-day are ships and engines and reapers. 
Tools free the mind for books, free the taste 
and imagination for beauty, free the affec- 
tion for social service. Thereby comes the 
day of universal happiness and civilization 
of which the poet dreams, toward which the 
philanthropist works. As once the prophets 
so now God is baptizing inventors and their 
tools with the spirit of service. Some Watt, 
perhaps, with a new method of transit, mak- 
ing it possible for the dwellers in tenements 
to journey into the country ten miles in 
ten minutes for half as many pence, will, 
through sunshine and fresh air, cleanse and 
gospelize the cellars and garrets of our slum 


31 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


districts. Soon tools are to become evan- 
gelists of the higher life. 

It ought to go without saying that the 
preachers are prophets divine. It would 
be sad indeed if they, instead of being 
seers and living forces, should fade into 
emblematic figures at christenings, wed- 
dings, and funerals, or become mere guardi- 
.ans of theological dogmas. History tells 
'us every new era has been created by a 
' preacher. Guizot insists that Paul did more 
for liberty and free institutions than any 
man who ever stood on Western soil. 
Froude says it was not the scholar Erasmus, 
but the preacher Luther, who created the 
Reformation. It was a prophet of Florence 
that turned the city of art into the city of 
God. Those moral teachers named Cedmon, 
Bede, Bunyan, and the translators of King 
James’s version of the Bible opened up for 
us the springs of English literature. 

Cromwell’s letters tell us that the Puritan 
preachers destroyed the divine rights of 
kings, that citadel of falsehood and cruelty 
and crime. It was Robertson of Brighton 
that first said that man was never justified 
by faith until faith had made man just. It 

32 


The Prophets of a New Era 


was a preacher, Barnett, who went to live 
in Whitechapel Road, and in that wilder- 
ness of ignorance and misery founded a 
social settlement to which came students 
from Oxford and Cambridge to give them- 
selves to the poor. It was a preacher, 
Henry Ward Beecher, who, when men said 
that evolution would destroy the Bible, 
drove out fear and doubt, and showed us that 
the theory of theistic evolution insured the 
immortality of the Bible and the permanency 
of Christianity. 

The scholar returns from his survey, hav- 
ing seen that in every realm God is causing 
life to expand and take on increasing breadth 
and richness. Man’s religion, therefore, is 
assuming new proportions, greater reason-_ 
ableness, and higher ideals of service. For 
the church also, a new era has dawned. 
As our age journeys away from Bacon’s 
theft, but gladly carries forward his philos- 
ophy; as society has left behind the sins of 
Robert Burns, but joyfully carries forward 
his sweet songs; so the church is journeying 
away from the falsities of medizvalism, but 
carries forward the sweetness and light of 
Jesus Christ. Gone forever the hideous 


33 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


dogmas that tortured our fathers! Gone 
forever the scholasticisms that confused 
Satan with God! Never again will the 
cross mean pacifying the wrath of an angry 
deity. Never again will a man be asked to 
debase his reason in order to exalt his heart. 
The church is exchanging the worship of 
the past for the heritage of the present, the 
old philosophies for the new living Christ. 
We have already seen the shapes of mental 
and moral beauty increase in number; we 
have seen our youth journeying toward the 
schoolhouse; our homes growing beautiful 
and happy; our workers moving in the 
morning hours toward shop and store, car- 
rying in their hands the emblems of knowl- 
edge; new and nobler forms of literature 
coming from the rapid press, and now it is 
given us to behold Christianity moving for- 
ward with increasing breadth, and having 
the might and majesty of a river of God. 
Already that divine teacher, Christ, hath 
touched poverty and clothed it with power; 
hath touched marriage and surrounded it 
with romance and love; hath touched the 
soldier and turned him into a hero and 
patriot. And now He is here to touch work 


34 


The Prophets of a New Era 


and wages, making them sacraments of 
human fellowship. Christ is also here to 
enrich each life with new and impressive 
forms of mental and moral beauty. He 
offers man new powers and new impulses. 
The force of the ship is in the trade 
wind that sweeps it on, and the joy of the 
sailor is in the harbor toward which he moves. 
Not otherwise the dignity and majesty of 
life are in the divine motives that sweep the 
soul upward and in the sublime destiny to- 
ward which the soul moves. In days gone 
by this divine Teacher put justice into law, 
ethics into politics, love into religion, and 
planted immortal hopes upon our graves. 
Having girded the heroes of old for their 
tasks, He steps into the new era, to continue 
the line of prophets and heroes. He offers 
to make apostolic succession a sublime fact. 
He bids each youth stand in the line of 
heroes and seers, with Paul and Socrates and 
Savonarola; with Hampden, Washington 
and Lincoln. He bids each maiden strike 
hands of noble friendship with Augusta Stan- 
ley and Florence Nightingale and Frances 
Willard. He bids the patriot of to-day emu- 
late and surpass the heroes of yesterday. 
35 


bap 


Ay. 


4 
ee ah } 
Be 





fi 
ican 








IJ 


bt tecture”’ as "pica of the Seven 
; Laws of Life—A Study of the Princi- 
ples of aa Building } 






I know well the common censure by which objec- 
tions to such futilities of so-called education are met 
by the men who have been ruined by them—the com- 
mon plea that anything does to “exercise the mind 
upon.” It is an utterly false one. The human soul, 
in youth, is zo¢ a machine of which you can polish 
the cogs with any kelp or brick-dust near at hand; 
and, having got it into working order, and good, 
empty, and oiled serviceableness, start your immortal 
locomotive at twenty-five years old, or thirty, express 
from the Strait Gate, on the Narrow Road. The 
whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, 
edification, instruction—I use the words with their 
weight in them—in taking of stores; establishment in 
vital habits, hopes, and faiths. There is not an hour 
of it but is trembling with destinies—not a moment 
of which, once past, the appointed work can ever be 
done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold 
iron. Take your vase of Venice glass out of the fur- 
nace, and strew chaff over it in its transparent heat, 
and recover faz to its clearness and rubied glory 
when the north wind has blown upon it; but do not 
think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God’s 
presence, and to bring the heavenly colors back to 
him—at least in this world.—Modern Painters, Vol. 
LLL, p. 430. 


I] 


JOHN RUSKIN’S ‘‘SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHI- 
TECTURE’ AS INTERPRETERS OF THE 
SEVEN LAWS OF LIFE—A STUDY OF THE 
PRINCIPLES OF CHARACTER BUILDING 


Among the heroic souls who have sought 
to recover the lost paradise and recapture 
the glory of an undefiled and blessed world 
stands John Ruskin, oft an apostle of gentle 
words that heal like medicines, and some- 
times a prophet of Elijah-like sternness and 
grandeur, consuming man’s sins with words 
of flame. ‘‘There is nothing going on 
among us,’” wrote Carlyle to Emerson, ‘‘as 
notable as those fierce lightning bolts Rus- 
kin is copiously and desperately pouring into 
the black world of anarchy around him. 
No other man has in him the divine rage 
against iniquity, falsity, and baseness that 
Ruskin has, and every man ought to have.”’ 
Full fifty years have passed since this glori- 
ous youth entered the arena, his face glow- 

ae 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ing with hope, the heroic flame of the 
martyrs burning within his breast, his mes- 
sage a plea for a return to the simplicities 
of virtue. During all these years he has 
been pouring forth prose of a purity and 
beauty that have never been surpassed. 
Over against the brocaded pages of Gibbon 
and the pomposity of Dr. Johnson’s style 
stands Ruskin’s prose, every page embodied 
simplicity, every sentence clear asa cube 
of solid sunshine. Effects that Keats pro- 
duced only through the music and magic of 
verse, John Ruskin has easily achieved 
through the plainness of prose. What 
Leigh Hunt said of Shelley we may say of 
Ruskin—he needs only the green sod be- 
neath his feet to make him a kind of human 
lark, pouring forth songs of unearthly sweet- 
ness. 

But if the critics vote him by acclamation 
the first prose writer of the century, it must 
be remembered that his fame does not rest 
upon his skill as a literary artist. An apostle 
of beauty and truth, indeed, Ruskin is pri- 
marily an apostle of righteousness. Unlike 
Burns and Byron, Shelley and Goethe, no 
passion ever poisoned his purposes and 

40 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture”’ 


no vice ever disturbed the working of his 
genius. What he taught in theory he first 
was in character and did in practice. Rich 
with great wealth, inherited and acquired, 
he refused interest upon his loans, and hav- 
ing begun with giving away his income, he 
ended by giving away much of his capital. 
Unlike that rich young man who went away 
from Christ sorrowful, John Ruskin gladly 
forsook all his possessions to follow Jesus. 
The child of leisure, he chose to earn to- 
morrow’s bread by to-day’s labor and toil. 

Going every whither seeking for pictures 
and marbles that represented ideal beauty, 
he used these art treasures not so much for 
enriching his own life and happiness as for 
diffusing the beautiful and furnishing models 
to laborers who worked in iron, steel, and 
stone. If other rich men have given money 
to found workingmen’s clubs, Ruskin gave 
himself also, and lent the toilers indepen- 
dence and self-reliance. It is said that 
through his favorite pupil, Arnold Toynbee, 
he developed the germ of the social settle- 
ments. But his fame rests neither upon his 
work as an art critic, nor his skill as a prose 
author, nor his work as a social reformer; it 

41 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


rests rather upon his unceasing emphasis 
of individual worth as the secret of hap- 
piness and progress. If Mazzini preached 
the gospel of social rights, and Carlyle the 
gospel of honest work, and Matthew Arnold 
the gospel of culture, and Emerson the gos- 
pel of sanity and optimism, John Ruskin’s 
message, repeated in a thousand forms, is 
one message—never altered and never re- 
treated from—goodness is more than gold, 
and character outweighs intellect. Because 
he stood for a fine, high, heroic regimen, he 
conquered confidence, and has his place 
among the immortals. 

If we search out the fascination of Rus- 
kin’s later works, we shall find the secret in 
their intense humanity. Loving nature, 
Ruskin’s earliest, latest, deepest enthusiasm 
was for man. With eager and passionate 
delight, in ‘‘Modern Painters’’ he sets forth 
the claim of rock and wave, of herb and 
shrub, upon man’s higher life. But the 
white clouds, the perfumed winds, the val- 
leys covered with tended corn and cattle, 
the mountains robed in pine as with the 
garments of God, seemed as nothing com- 
pared to man, who goes weeping, laughing, 

42 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


loving, through his pathetic career. One 
morning, crossing the field toward Matter- 
horn, he met a suffering peasant, and in 
that hour the mountain became as nothing 
in the presence of his brother man. In all 
‘his later books, therefore, he is a light- 
bearer, seeking to guide men into happiness 
and virtue. He reminds the weary king and 
the tormented slave alike that the secrets of 
happiness are in “‘drawing hard breath over 
chisel, or spade, or plow, in watching the 
corn grow and the blossom set, and, after 
toil, in reading, thinking, in hoping and 
praying.’’ Would any man be strong, let 
him work; or wise, let him observe and 
think; or happy, let him help; or influential, . 
let him sacrifice and serve. Does some 
youth deny beauty to the eye, books to the 
mind, and friendship to the heart, that he 
may gather gold and daily eat stalled ox in 
a palace? Such a one is a prince who hath 
voluntarily entered a dungeon to spend his 
time gathering the rotting straw from the 
damp stones to twist it into a filthy wreath 
for his forehead. Does some Samson of 
industry use his superior wisdom to gather 
into his hands all the lines of some branch 


43 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of trade while others starve? He is like 
unto a wrecker, who lures some good ship 
upon the rocks that he may clothe himself 
with garments and possess purses unwrapped 
from the bodies of brave men slain by deceit. 
Wealth, he asserts, is like any other natural 
power in nature—divine if divinely used. 
In the hands of a miserly man wealth is 
clogged by selfishness and becomes like 
rivers that ‘‘overwhelm the plains, poison- 
ing the winds, their breath pestilence, their 
work famine,’’ while honest and benevolent 
wealth is like those rivers that pass softly 
from field to field, moistening the soil, puri- 
fying the air, giving food to man and beast, 
bearing up fleets of war and peace. 

For John Ruskin the modern Pharisee was 
the man who prayed, ‘‘God, I thank thee 
that I am not as other men are; I feast 
seven days a week, while I have made other 
men fast.’’ And against every form of 
selfishness and injustice he toiled, ever seek- 
ing to overthrow the kingdoms of Mammon 
and Belial, laboring to make his land a 
‘land of royal thrones for kings, a sceptered 
isle for all the world, a realm of light, a 
center of peace, a mistress of arts, a faithful 


44, 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


guardian of great memories in the midst of 
irreverence and ephemeral visions.’’ But 
from the first volume of ‘Modern Painters’’ 
to the last pages of the ‘‘Preterita’’ his one 
message is, Doing is better than seeming, 
giving is better than getting, and stooping 
to serve better than climbing toward the 
throne to wear an outer crown and scepter. 

Over against these books dealing with 
man’s ambitions, strifes, defeats, and sins 
stands Ruskin’s ‘“Lamps of Architecture,’’ 
a book written at an hour when the sense 
of life’s sins, sorrows, and wrongs swept 
through his heart with the might of a de- 
stroying storm. Inthat hour when the pen 
dropped from his hand and hope departed 
from his heart, one problem distracted his 
mind by day and disturbed his sleep by 
night—‘‘Why is the fruit shaken to the 
earth before its ripeness, the glowing life 
and the goodly purpose dissolved away in 
sudden death, the words half spoken chilled 
upon the lips touched into clay forever, the 
whole majesty of humanity raised to its 
fullness, with every gift and power neces- 
sary for a given purpose at a given moment 
centered in one man, and all this perfected 


45 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


blessing permitted to be refused, perverted, 
crushed, and cast aside by those who need 
it most—the city which is zot set upona 
hill, the candle that giveth light to none 
enthroned in the candlestick?’’ The world’s 
ingratitude to its best men rested like a 
black cloud upon his spirit. In that hour 
when the iron entered his soul and ingrati- 
tude blighted the blossoms of the heart, 
Ruskin turned from the baseness of man to 
the white statue that lifts no mailed hand 
to strike, and exchanged the coarse curses 
of the market-place for the sacred silence of 
the cathedral. He knew that if wholesome 
labor wearies at first, afterward it lends 
pleasure; that if the frosty air now chills 
the peasant’s cheek, afterward it will make 
his blood the warmer. But he also knew 
that ‘‘labor may be carried toa point of 
utter exhaustion from which there is no 
recovery; that cold passing to a certain 
point will cause the arm to molder in its 
socket,’’ and that heart-sickness through 
ingratitude may cause the soul to lose its 
life forever. 

Leaving behind the tumult of the street 
and the din of the market-place, he entered 

46 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


the cathedral, hoping in its silence and 
peace to find healing for life’s hurts. 
Standing beneath the vast dome, in vision 
hour he saw Von Rile or Angelo stretching 
out hands upon the stones of the field and 
rearing them into some awful pile with vast 
springing arches and intrepid pinnacles that 
go leaping toward Him whose home is above 
the clouds and beyond them. He saw walls 
all glorious with lustrous beauty, and knew 
that artists had taken the flower girls from 
the streets and turned them into angels for 
the ceiling; had taken the shrunken beggar, 
hobbling homeward, and made him to reap- 
pear upon the canvas as an Apollo of 
beauty. He saw chapels once the scene of 
rubbish, plaster, and litter become chapels 
of peace, glowing with angels and prophets 
and sibyls. One day, crossing the square of 
Venice, he saw St. Mark’s rising like a 
vision out of the ground, its front one vast 
forest of clustered pillars of white and gold 
and rose, upon which rested domes glorious 
enough to have been let down from heaven; 
a pile made partly of mother-of-pearl, partly 
of opal, partly of marble, every tower sur- 
mounted by a golden cross flinging wide its 
47 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


arms to uplift the world, every niche hold- 
ing some angel upon whose lips trembled 
words of mercy and healing. Lingering 
there, slowly the fever passed from his heart 
and the fret from his mind. Studying the 
laws by which foundations were made firm, 
by which towers were made secure and 
domes perfect, he completed a volume in 
which he forgot man, and remembered only 
the problems of stone and steel and wood; 
and yet as we analyze these chapters we find 
that these seven lamps of architecture are in 
reality the seven laws of life and happiness. 
For the soul is atemple more majestic than 
any cathedral—a temple in which principles 
are foundation stones, and habits are col- 
umns and pillars, and faculties are master 
builders, every thought driving a nail and 
every deed weakening or making strong 
some timber, every holy aspiration lending 
beauty to the ceiling, as every unclean 
thing lends defilement—the whole standing 
forth at last builded either of passions, 
worthless as wood, hay, and stubble, or 
builded of thoughts and purposes more pre- 
cious than gold and flashing gems. 
Lingering long in the cities of Italy, Rus- 
48 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture”’ 


kin found some temples in the full pride of 
their strength and the perfection of their 
beauty, having passed unharmed through 
the snows of a thousand winters and the 
storms of a thousand summers. But other 
temples he found that were mere shells of 
their former loveliness, bare skeletons. of 
pierced walls, here a tower and there an 
arch. Studying these deserted temples 
through which the sea wind moaned and 
murmured, and the ruins that time was 
plowing into dust, he discovered that no 
robber’s hand had wrought this ruin, that no 
fire had consumed the arch or overthrown the 
column. In Venice the roof of the great 
church had fallen because the architect had 
put lying stones in the foundation. In 
Verona the people had deserted the cathe- 
dral because the architect had built columns 
of plaster and painted them to look like 
veined marble, forgetting that time would 
soon expose the ugly, naked lie. One day, 
entering a church ina heavy rainstorm, he 
found buckets placed to catch the rain that 
was dripping from the priceless frescoes of 
Tintoretto because a builder had put lying 
tiles upon the roof. He saw ships cast 
49 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


upon the rocks because some smith had put 
a lying link in the anchor’s cable. He saw 
the members of a household burning up 
with a fatal fever because the plumber had 
used lying lead in the drainage. He saw 
the captain deceiving himself about the leaks 
in his boat and taking sailors forth to a cer- 
tain death. | 

And in that hour his whole soul revolted 
from ‘‘the patriotic lie of the historian, the 
provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie 
of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, 
and the careless lie of each man to himself.’”’ 
For if untruth is fatal to the permanency of 
buildings, much more is it fatal to excel- 
lence in the soul. For man the beginning 
of lies is ruin, and the end thereof death. 
Therefore in John’s vision of the city of 
God he saw there no sorcerer, no murderer, 
and no man ‘‘who loveth and maketh a lie.”’ 
For life’s deadliest enemy, and its most 
despicable one, is falseness. In the last 
analysis, untruth is inferiority and weakness. 
When the teacher lifts the rod, the child 
without other defense lifts up the lie as a 
shield against the blow. When the dying 
man asks his friends as to his condition, the 

50 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


strong man, conscious of his resources to 
make his friend victorious over death, 
speaks the instant truth, while the weak 
man, unwilling to confess his poverty of 
resource, tells this soft and glistening lie, 
**To-morrow you will be better.’’ 

In the realm of traffic, also, the wise 
merchant can afford to sell his goods for 
what they are, but the weak one feels 
that he must sell lying threads, lying 
foods, and lying drinks. But nature hates 
lies. She makes each law a detective. 
Sooner or later she runs down every false- 
hood. <A tiny worm may pierce the heart 
of a young tree, and the bark may hide 
the secret gash. But as the days go on 
the rain will cut one fiber, and the heat 
another, and when years have passed, some 
time when a soft zephyr goes sighing 
through the forest the great tree will come 
crashing down. For at last nature will hunt 
out every hidden weakness. If the law of 
truth is the first law in temple-rearing and 
palace-building, truth is also the first law in 
happiness and character. When Christ 
pleads for the new heart, He urges man to 
break with him who is the father of lies and 


51 


— vy ¢ R 
i +f : 
Lu wh i amllenc: fend Lode 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


swear fidelity to Him who is the God of 
truth, whose ways are happiness, and whose 
paths are peace. 

To that law of truth that firmly fixes 
foundations for cathedrals, Ruskin adds the 
law of obedience. In springing his wall the 
architect must plumb the stones in obedi- 
ence to the law of gravity. In springing 
his arch he must brace it, obeying the laws 
of resistance. In lifting his tower he must 
relate it to the temple, obeying the law of 
proportion and symmetry; and he who dis- 
obeys one fundamental law will find great 
nature pulling his towers down over his 
head. For no architect builds as he pleases, 
but only as nature pleases, through laws of 
gravity, and stone, and steel. In the king- 
dom of the soul also obedience is strength 
and life, and disobedience is weakness and 
death. In the last analysis liberty is a 
phantom, a dream, a mere figment of the 
brain. 

Society’s greatest peril to-day is the 
demagogues who teach and the ignorant 
classes who believe that there is such a 
thing as liberty. The planets have no lib- 
erty; they follow theirsun. The seas know 

52 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


no liberty; they follow the moon in tidal 
waves. When the river refuses to keep 
within its banks, it becomes a curse anda 
destruction. It is the stream that is 
restrained by its banks that turns mill- 
wheels for men. The clouds, too, have 
their beauty in that they are led forth in 
ranks, and columns, generaled by the night 
winds. And in proportion as things pass 
from littleness toward largeness they go 
toward obedience to law. Because the dead 
leaf obeys nothing, it flutters down from its 
bough, giving but tardy recognition to the 
law of gravity; while our great earth, cov- 
ered with cities and civilization, is instantly 
responsive to gravity’s law. Indeed, he 
who disobeys any law of nature flings him- 
self athwart her wheels, to be crushed to 
powder. And if disobedience is destruction, 
obedience is liberty. Obeying the law of 
steam, man has an engine. Obeying the 
law of fire, he has warmth. Obeying the 
law of speech, he has eloquence. Obey- 
ing the law of sound thinking, he has lead- 
ership. Obeying the law of Christ, he has | 
character. The stone obeys one law, grav- 
ity, and is without motion. The worm 
53 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


obeys two laws, and adds movement. The 
bird obeys three laws, and can fly as well 
as stand or walk. And as man increases 
the number of laws that he obeys, he 
increases in richness of nature, in wealth, 
and strength, and influence. Nature loves 
paradoxes, and this is her chiefest paradox— 
he who stoops to wear the yoke of law be- 
comes the child of liberty, while he who will 
be free from God’s law wears a ball and chain 
through all his years. Philosophy reached 
its highest fruition in Christ’s principle, 
‘“Love is the fulfillment of the law.”’ 

Not less important are the laws of beauty 
and of sacrifice. When the marble, refusing 
to express an impure or wicked thought, has 
fulfilled the law of strength, suddenly it 
blossoms into the law of beauty. For 
beauty is no outer polish, no surface adorn- 
ment. Workers in wood may veneer soft 
pine with thin mahogany, or hide the pov- 
erty of brick walls behind thin slabs of alabas- 
ter. But real beauty is an interior quality, 
striking outward and manifest upon the 
surface. When the sweet babe is healthy 
within, a soft bloom appears upon the cheek 
without. When ripeness enters the heart of 


54 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


the grape, a purple flush appears upon the 
surface of the cluster. Carry the rude 
speech of the forest child up to beauty, and 
it becomes the musical language of Xeno- 
phon. Carry the rude hut of a savage up 
to beauty, and it becomes a marble house. 
Carry the stumbling thought of a slave up 
to beauty, and it becomes the essay of 


Epictetus. But beauty obeys the law of 5; 
sacrifice, and is very simple. The truly | | 


beautiful column stands forth a single mar- 
ble shaft. The most perfect capital has one 
adornment, an acanthus leaf. Is Antigone 
or Rosalind to dress for her marriage-day? 
Let her wear one color—white—and one 
flower at her throat—a sweet briar. Does 
some Burns or Bryant, standing in the field 
of blackberries, meditate a poem, let him 
eat for the flavor one berry, no more. Does 
some youth aspire to perfect prose, let him 
prune away all high-sounding phrases, and 
instead of adorning one thought in ten 
glorious sentences, let him fill his ten simple | 
sentences with ten great thoughts. Oursisa 
world in which the sweetest song is the 
simplest. 

And when the vestal virgin of beauty 

55 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


has adorned the temple without, it asks 
the artist to adorn his soul with thoughts, 
and worship, and aspirations. If the body 
lives in a marble house, the soul should 
revolt from building a mud hut. The 
law of divine beauty asks the youth to 
flee from unclean thoughts and vulgar pur- 
poses as from a bog or a foul slough. It 
bids him flee from irreverence, vanity, 
and selfishness as man flees from some 
plague-smitten village or a filthy garment. 
How sweet the voice of beauty that whis- 
pers, ‘‘Seek whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
things are virtuous, whatsoever things are 
of good report.’’ Having doubled the 
beauty of his house, having doubled the 
sweetness of his music, having doubled the 
wisdom of his book, man should also double 
the nobility and beauty of his life, making 
the soul within as glorious as a temple with- 
out. 

When the palace or temple has been 
founded in strength and crowned with 
beauty, the law of remembrance comes in 
to bid men guard well their treasures. This 
building that the fathers reared out of their 

56 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


thoughts, their gold, their aspirations and 
worship, is theirs, not ours. Rather it is 
ours only to guard and enjoy, not to 
destroy or alter. Our Independence Hall, 
England’s great abbey, Italy’s St. Peter’s, 
the Parthenon of Athens, these are not 
ours. They belong partly to the noble 
fathers who built them and partly to the 
generations that shall come after us. What 
we build we may cast down or change. 
But their illuminated missals and books are 
to be guarded in glass cases and handed 
forward; their immortal frescoes and statues 
are to be watched as we watch the crown 
jewels of kings; the doors of their temples 
are to be guarded as once men guarded the 
gates of the city. Profane indeed the 
destroying hands lifted upon some ancient 
marble, or picture, or bronze! Sacred for- 
ever the steps of that temple worn by the 
feet of Pericles, and Plato, and Socrates! 
Sacred the temple which passed the seven 
good emperors of Rome! Sacred that 
abbey where the parliaments of kings and 
churches oft did meet! Little wonder that 
men, worn and weary by life’s fierce strife, 
make long pilgrimages to the Duomo in 
57 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Florence, or the great square in Venice, or 
to that marble hall in Milan.* Frederic 
Harrison thinks the Parthenon of Phidias is 
as sacred as the ‘‘Iliad’’ of Homer; Giotto’s 
tower in Florence is as precious as the 
‘*Paradiso’’ of Dante; the abbey of England 
is as immortal as the ‘‘Hamlet’’ of Shakes- 
peare. No punishment can be too severe 
for him who lifts a vandal’s hand to destroy 
these treasure-houses of great souls. 

And then, like a sweet voice falling from 
the sky, come the words: “Ye are the 
temple of God. This house not made with 
hands is eternal in the heavens.’’ He who 
asks men to guard dead statues and the 
decaying canvas will himself guard and 
keep in immortal remembrance the soul 
temple of the dying statesman, and hero, and 
martyr. If Milton says that “‘a book is the 
precious lifeblood of a master spirit em- 
balmed and treasured up on purpose for a 
life beyond life,’’ and affirms that we may 
‘fas well kill a man as kill a good book,”’ 
then the divine voice whispers that the 
soul is the precious life-temple into which 
three-score years and ten have swept their 


* See “ Sacredness of Ancient Buildings.” 
58 


Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture” 


thoughts, and dreams, and hopes, and pray- 
ers, and tears, and committed all this treas- 
ure into the hands of that God who never 
slumbers and never sleeps. 

Slowly the soul’s temple rises. Slowly 
reason and conscience make beautiful the 
halls of imagination, the galleries of memory, 
the chambers of affection. When success 
makes the colors so bright as to dazzle, 
trouble comes in to soften the tints. If 
adversity lends gloom to some room of 
memory, hope enters to lighten the dark 
lines. For character is a structure that 
rises under the direction of a divine Master 
Builder. Full oft a divine form enters the 
earthly scene. Thoughts that are not man’s 
enterhis mind. Hopes that are not his, like 
angels, knock at his door to aid him in his 
work. Even death is no ‘‘Vandal.’’ When 
the body hath done its work, death pulls the 
body down, as Tintoretto, toiling upon his 
ceiling, pulled down his scaffold to reveal to 
men a ceiling glorious with lustrous beauty. 
. At the gateway of ancient Thebes watchmen 
stood to guard the wicked city. Upon the 
walls of bloody Babylon soldiers walked the 
long night through, ever keeping the towers 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


where tyranny dwelt. And if kings think 
that dead stones and breathless timbers are 
worthy of guarding, we may believe that 
God doth set keepers to guard the living 
city of man’s soul. He gives His angels 
charge over the fallen hero, the dying 
mother and the sleeping child. He will 
not forget His dead. Man’s soul is God’s 
living temple. It is not kept by earthly 
hands. It is eternal in the heavens. 


III 


George Eliot’s Tito, in “ Romola”—A 
Study of the Peril of Tampering with 
Conscience and the Gradual Deteriora- 
tion of Character 


You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithful- 
ness, and love, and sweet, grateful memories no good? 
Is it no good that we should keep our silent promises 
on which others build because they believe in our love 
and truth? Is it no good that a just life should be 
justly honored? Or, is it good that we should harden 
our hearts against all the wants and hopes of those 
who have depended upon us? What good can belong 
to men who have such souls? To talk cleverly, per- 
haps, and find soft couches for themselves, and live 
and die with their base selves as their best compan- 
ions. It is only a poor sort of happiness, my Lillo, 
that could ever come by caring very much about our 
own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest 
happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, 
by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the 
rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of 
happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we 
can only tell it from pain by its being what we would 
choose before everything else, because our souls see 
itis good. There are so many things wrong and dif- 
ficult in the world, that no man can be great—he can 
hardly keep himself from wickedness — unless he 
gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, 
and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. 
—Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot, p. 154. 


III 


GEORGE ELIOT’S TITO, IN ‘‘ROMOLA’’—A 
STUDY OF THE PERIL OF TAMPERING 
WITH CONSCIENCE AND THE GRADUAL 
DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER 


Ever since King David’s time, when 
Nathan used his story of the ewe lamb to 
indict the guilty monarch, fiction has been 
one of life’s great teachers. He who 
*“spake as never man spake’’ adopted the 
parable as His favorite method of instruction. 
After eighteen centuries, the most popular 
story in literature is Christ’s story of the 
prodigal son, a story that has fascinated 
the generations, softened the races, and will 
yet win a wandering world back to its 
Father’s side. If the Bible, with its para- 
bles, is the book best loved by men, next to 
it stands ‘‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,’’ more widely 
read than any other human book. If ‘‘Les 
Miserables’’ exhibits the evolution of con- 
science, ‘‘Wilhelm Meister,’’ the evolution 

63 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of intellect, and ‘‘The Scarlet Letter,’’ 
the evolution of pain and penalty, the 
theme of ‘‘Romola’’ is the evolution of sin, 
the peril of tampering with conscience and 
the gradual deterioration of character. In 
this volume George Eliot stands forth the 
historian of the soul, and tells the story of 
its decline and fall. At the beginning of 
his career the beautiful boy Tito was 
crowned with innocence and purity, but at 
last he stood forth covered with infamy and 
shame as with garments of pollution. 
Consider the youth who enters the scene 
with all the promise of a coming hero and 
passes from our sight a full-blown villain. 
Early one morning a Florentine merchant, 
passing through a street that Dante loved, 
found a young Greek lying asleep in the 
portico of an old church. An hour later 
the merchant, conversing with his clerk, 
described the boy, with his broad, straight 
forehead, his youthful face infused with 
rich young blood, his dark, soft, velvety 
eyes, as needing only a myrtle wreath about 
his curls to make him a young Bacchus, or 
rather a gifted Apollo. But Tito’s bright 
face and the richly tinted beauty that lent 
64 





George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


his face the radiance of a sunny morning 
were the least of his gifts. His, also, was an 
intellect keen indeed, and wit that flashed 
like a two-edged sword. His, too, the gift 
of humor, and that gurgling laughter and 
mirth that are contagious and make their 
possessor the radiant center of every social 
circle. 

Fascinating indeed the history of this 
youth, who made his history a tragedy. 
Very early in life he was left an orphan, and 
fell upon filth, beggary, and cruel wrong. 
By some unknown means a traveling min- 
strel gained possession of the child, and 
made his living from the boy’s sweet voice. 
Unfortunately, his master was drunken and 
cruel, and oft gave the child blows and bit- 
terness. One day when Baldassarre was 
crossing the market-place he was moved by 
the child’s pathetic sorrow. Rescuing him 
from brutal kicks, he brought Tito to a 
home that seemed like paradise. Lonely 
and long unloved, the father poured out 
for orphaned Tito the full tides of a heart 
stored with an inexhaustible treasure. Ful- 
filling a career of caresses and comforts, 
the child’s life blossomed and _ passed 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


swiftly into a youth crowned with splendid 
grace. 

But moving along the streets of the 
Grecian city, the youth could never forget 
that some there were who once had known 
him as a minstrel child dwelling in want 
and beggary. This touched his pride. In 
such hours he urged his father to sell all 
his goods and take him to Italy, where he 
might pass as his benefactor’s son. For 
even in childhood Tito was selfish. Oft 
had he refused his father’s wishes, but re- 
fused with such charming, half-smiling, and 
pleading good nature that the mere pleasure 
of looking at him made amends to his bene- 
factor and robbed the selfish boy’s refusal 
of half its poison. In his selfishness it 
seemed as nothing to the youth that he was 
asking his father to leave the city of his 
fathers, the house where he was born, the 
villa with its graves upon the hillside. But 
the youth had set his heart upon going, and 
sought ever to sunder the cords that bound 
the man tohisold home. One night, over- 
persuaded, the father came home to say 
that he had turned all his goods into the 
form of gold and gems, making ready for 

66 


George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


the hour when he would turn forever from 
his native land. One promise alone he ex- 
acted from the youth—that when death 
came, as come it must, Tito would bring 
him back to sleep beside his fathers. But 
scarcely had the ship that was to bear the 
pilgrims into Italy passed into the open sea 
when disaster overtook the travelers. In 
the excitement of the shipwreck father and 
son were separated. Unfortunately, the 
boat that saved the older man from drown- 
ing fell into the hands of pirates; while Tito, 
after a night of peril and clinging to a 
broken spar, was picked up by a vessel that 
landed him in Florence. Thus for a second 
time Providence had granted a marvelous 
deliverance. Having passed from a beg- 
gar’s hut to a merchant’s palace, the youth 
now exchanged drowning, or what was 
worse, a Turkish slave market, for that city 
of splendor and romance that had been the 
Mecca of hisdreams. By two deliverances, 
therefore, Providence had, as it were, placed 
him under bonds. God had sworn Tito 
to a life of service, self-sacrifice, and noble 
generosity. 

But when this buoyant youth, who had 

67 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


known such romantic adventures, found 
himself in the city Dante loved, he fell 
into a grievous temptation. His bright 
face, easy smile, and liquid voice won 
friends, and swift advancement stirred high 
hopes in the ambitious boy. Among the 
events of his first week in Florence were an 
opportunity of teaching Greek to the sons 
of a rich family, an invitation to become 
secretary in the Scala palace, and a request 
to serve as librarian for a blind scholar, one 
Bardo de Bardi. Lest these new friends 
should misunderstand his buoyant spirits, he 
said nothing of his father’s peril. In his 
heart he told himself that after he had sold 
the gems he would probably begin the search 
for his benefactor. But when a week had 
passed by, and he had kept his guilty secret, 
something whispered that should his new 
friends now discover his shameful selfish 
ness, they would despise him for not hav- 
ing gone at once to the ruler of the city to 
tell him that his father had been seized by 
pirates and was even now, under the sum- 
mer sun, ‘“‘toiling as a slave, hewing wood 
and carrying water, perhaps being smitten 
because he was not deft and active,’’ and 
68 


George Eliot’s “Romola” 


invoke the ruler’s aid to help free his bene- 
factor. But Tito justified himself by the 
thought that even if he did start forth to 
visit the archipelago he might suffer a second 
shipwreck or be himself seized by pirates, 
and so have no means to support his father 
should the old man finally be discovered. 
Doubtless Baldassarre was even now dead. 
Tito had indeed known of instances where 
relatives had gone to crowned and mitered 
heads for aid in freeing friends from the 
horrors of Turkish slavery, but these were 
all persons of great wealth. Perhaps, also, 
Baldassarre’s absence was arelief. Of late 
the heavy-browed, eagle-eyed old man had 
grown wearisome and exacting. Indeed, the 
very thought of Calvo’s coming to Florence 
to be with him sent a shudder through 
Tito’s frame, and he felt that the old man 
would be a weight and clog. All the 
chances were that he was dead, but should 
events recover him to life Tito would need 
his money to support his benefactor. Fate 
therefore seemed to have decided that it 
was best for Baldassarre to end his career 
by shipwreck and death. What fate had 
decided fate would achieve. Therefore 
69 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Tito bowed his will to the inevitable. He 
invested the five hundred florins obtained 
by selling his father’s gems with Cennini. 
He determined to do nothing, and speak of 
his father as lost. In that sad hour Tito 
sold himself to the prince of evil. 

If the next two months sufficed to lend a 
golden hue to the harvest fields and a pur- 
ple cast to the vineyards, these summer 
months showed no other change upon Tito 
than that ‘‘added radiance of good fortune 
which is like the just perceptible perfecting 
of a flower after it has drunk the morning 
sunbeams.’’ The youth who had landed 
with weather-stained tunic and hose found 
himself a growing influence among the 
leaders of Florence. Passing through the 
streets, his highest hopes were stirred by 
the cordial salutations of merchants and 
politicians and the grave recognition of sen- 
ators and bishops. But the springs of his 
hope grew deeper still. Among the old 
patrician families, who suffered grievously 
from recent wars and had exchanged wealth 
and dignity for what seemed poverty to them, 
was Bardo de Bardi, who had commenced 
his career as a merchant, but in early life 

70 


George Eliot’s “Romola” 


had become fascinated by the new Greek 
learning, and so had spent his years in the 
collection of rare manuscripts and precious 
marbles, gathering literary treasures so rich 
as to encourage the hope that he had made 
“‘a lasting impression upon the fast-whirling 
earth.’’ From the hour when Tito, with 
his knowledge of the classics, entered his 
library, the blind scholar felt that at last he 
had found a secretary who could help him 
perfect a catalogue for these books that were 
to form his final monument. But to Tito 
the rolls and manuscripts, precious as they 
were, seemed as nothing in comparison with 
that Romola who was indeed the most beau- 
tiful girl in Florence, and had been to the 
blind scholar ‘‘a light in time of darkness.’’ 
In those, happy days oft the young Greek 
lingered in the library until darkness lay 
upon all the books, and his handsome face, 
his radiant spirits, his gentle, beseeching 
admiration, soon won the heart of this 
proud, shy girl. In the hour of approach- 
ing marriage Tito could scarcely believe his 
own good fortune. Events had fulfilled his 
highest hopes. 

And when marriage had lent him patrician 

41 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


position, by chance Tito discovered a polit- 
ical conspiracy. Soon an opportunity to ful- 
fill a secret commission for the conspirators 
filled his purse with gold. Later his guilty 
knowledge made it necessary for the polit- 
ical leaders to widen their circle and find a 
place for Tito. Soon he was a familiar figure 
in all the palaces. Daily death vacates one 
great man’s chair. Tito waited his chance, 
and then, with a single bound, leaped into 
fame and fortune. Because he was not 
embarrassed by conscienee, he soon became 
invaluable to the conspirators against the 
state. 

But just in the brightest hour of his new 
career the shadow of Nemesis fell dark 
across his path. One morning, while cross- 
ing the square, Tito met a monk, newly 
arrived from Sicily. Having inquired his 
name, the stranger gave Tito a packet upon 
which was written, ‘‘For Tito Melema, age 
twenty-three, with a dark, beautiful face, 
long, dark curls, the brightest smile, and 
a large onyx ring on his right forefinger.’’ 
Opening the parchment, Tito read these 
words: ‘‘I am sold for a slave. They are 
going to take me to Antioch. The gems 


72 


George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


alone will ransom me.’’ In that moment 
of judgment Tito’s terror was increased by 
the discovery that this monk was Fra Luca, 
brother to his Romola. Shivering for fear, 
he cast about for help. The moment was 
big with peril. There was indeed the barest 
chance that Fra Luca did not know the con- 
tents of the message; also the sickness that 
was upon the monk might prove fatal. On 
the other hand, even though his father was 
alive, it was too late to sail for Antioch. 
Baldassarre had had his draught of life. Tito 
felt that his turn had come. Now that the 
cup of joy was at his lips it was unfair to 
put it away and go through life ever thirst- 
ing. Of course the five hundred florins 
belonged to Baldassarre, nor did he wish 
them for himself, but only for Romola. 
When darkness fell, his terror increased, and 
fulfilled A%schylus’ words, ‘‘It is good that 
fear should sit as a guardian of the soul, 
forcing it into wisdom.’’ 

Since sleep was impossible, and he could 
not know the result of Romola’s inter- 
view with her brother until morning, and 
having an unconquerable aversion to un- 
pleasant thoughts, Tito sprang up, and, 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


walking through the streets, left the city 
behind him. He was in one of those law- 
less moments when the soul has no guide 
but desire. Also the face of a little peasant 
girl whom he had met in the market-place 
rose before him. He determined to use the 
evening when his fate hung in the balance 
by amusing himself with his new acquaint- 
ance. That night for little Tessa the flowers 
of the soul withered upon their branches. All 
the barriers that protect virtue fell in ruins. 

Returning home, Tito reflected that in any 
event Romola would probably soon break | 
with him. But perfect scheming demands 
omniscience. When the new day dawned 
he found that Fra Luca was dead, and had 
carried the guilty secret with him to the 
grave. Not dreaming of Tito’s unfaithful- 
ness, Romola met him with sweet abandon 
of love. Sorrow had clothed her with divine 
dignity, sweetness, and beauty. Suddenly 
Tito’s spirit rebounded from the dread unto 
joy as a lithe, soft-furred young tiger leaps 
in its play. At once he put far away all 
fear. But as the days swept on this youth, 
who at the beginning was merely weak, 
moved swiftly toward shame and infamy. 

74 


George Eliot's “Romola” 


Had some keen observer been blessed with 
the power to pierce through his outer dis- 
guise, he would have seen that this soft and 
beautiful body was a velvet sheath that con- 
cealed the black heart of ascoundrel. Daily 
this youth picked some of the ripe fruit of 
ease and prosperity. Nevertheless, God is 
just. Sins are seeds that carry in them- 
selves harvests of coming punishment. 

But the wise man saith, ‘‘Sins are like 
lions’ cubs, and lions’ whelps do grow and 
increase.’’ So it happened that when 
months had passed Tito found his sin was a 
wild beast crouching at his door. One 
day, making his way into the center of an 
excited crowd, he found himself face to face 
with his adopted father. Fascinated and 
full of terror, the two men glared into each 
other’s eyes, silent as death. Baldassarre’s 
face was full of fury; Tito’s white lips were 
bloodless and trembling. When an officer 
laid his hand upon the old man and ex- 
claimed, ‘‘Who is this?’ Tito’s passion 
leaped forth under the inspiration of crime, 
and he answered, ‘‘Some madman, surely!’’ 
Transfixed by that word, Baldassarre started 
with pain. A magical passion seemed to 

75 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


leap from his eyes and to dart into the 
veins of Tito. But when the old man had 
gone, the youth quickly recovered himself, 
for he had ‘‘lips that could lie with dimpled 
smiles, eyes whose brightness infamy could 
not dim, cheeks that could rise from murder 
and not look haggard.’’ When his com- 
panions railed him for looking as if he had 
seen a ghost, he excused himself and 
plunged into a secluded street. He felt as 
if ‘‘a serpent had begun to coil about his 
limbs.’’ Baldassarre, living and in Flor- 
ence, seemed to him the incarnation of 
vengeance. With bitterness he recalled that 
if he had but thrown himself into his father’s 
arms one well-turned falsehood might have 
brought him through the crisis. But that 
word, ‘‘He is a madman,’’ had revealed 
everything to Baldassarre. One resource 
was indeed possible—to turn back, to con- 
fess all to his father, to Romola, to all the 
world. Yet sin had so deadened his con- 
science that he never even thought of that. 

Not until weeks had passed did he under- 
stand why Baldassarre had delayed his 
vengeance. The old man was waiting for 
an hour of publicity, when this traitor, this 

76 


George Eliot’s ‘Romola’”’ 


hated favorite of blind fortune, was sur- 
rounded by chief men, on whose favor he 
depended. One evening Tito was the guest 
of honor at Rucellai’s palace. At the mo- 
ment when the festivities were at their height 
Baldassarre suddenly entered the room. 
When Tito turned pale and trembled, the 
silence of death fell upon all. Baldassarre 
said: ‘*There is a man here who is a scoun- 
drel, a liar, a robber. I took him from 
beggary when he was a child. I was a 
father to him. I made hima scholar. My 
head has lain hard that he might have a 
pillow. Shipwrecked, he left me in slavery. 
He sold my gems, and when I came he 
denied me.’” Amazed, doubting, bewil- 
dered, the guests looked from Baldassarre to 
Tito, not knowing this end. But the ex- 
citement was too much for the old man. 
Broken-hearted, now the strings of his mind 
also snapped. A moment later all memory 
passed from him. Servants led him away. 
Then the banqueters expressed sympathy 
with Tito that this crazy old man had 
fastened his hatred upon one so innocent. 
But if the banquet went on, Tito’s heart 
was palpitating. The wine tasted no better 
77 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


‘‘than if it had been blood.’’ For safety he 
had paid a heavy price. That night Tito . 
trembled, and felt that the stars blazed 
anger at him. The earth had become dust, 
and the heavens were iron and brass. He 
was now an exile from Eden. Angels with 
swords of flame kept the gates of Paradise 
against him. 

Yet night and sleep recovered Tito’s old- 
time caution and coolness. If all else failed, 
flight at least was left. Of late, indeed, 
events had not gone well with Tito. 
Always of extravagant tastes, his expenses 
were heavy, and the peasant girl and her 
two babes had cost him much money. 
Flight to Venice or Paris meant increased 
expenditure. Then it was that the man 
bethought himself of Romola’s father’s 
library. At first the very thought of 
treachery to the dead filled him with sick- 
ening terror. For half a century the scholar 
had used the fruit of his toil to collect 
these manuscripts and parchments. Only a 
few weeks before the cardinal had promised 
a building in which the collection might be 
preserved, thus handing forward the name 
of Bardo de Bardi. Grievous necessity was 

78 


George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


upon Tito. Finding he had a legal right to 
sell the books, he at once arranged with 
the agent of the Duke of Milan to visit 
the library in Romola’s absence. 

That night he asked the young wife what 
possible good those rolls and books could 
do if kept in one building under her father’s 
name more than if divided. Scattered 
through various cities would they not bring 
light and inspiration to many people? 
When the Grecian scholars with their manu- 
scripts fled before the ,Turks, was not the 
loss of Constantinople the gain of the whole 
world? An hour later Romola knew that 
the library had already been sold to the 
Duke of Milan, and that Tito had broken 
the solemn pledge made to her dying father. 
In that moment the rich, warm blood in her 
veins turned to molten steel. Her love, 
too, died forever. Affection was succeeded 
by hatred andcontempt. When the morn- 
ing dawned over the city the young wife 
knew that her life, that had seemed a beau- 
teous temple for happiness and peace, had 
become aruined heap. He who had entered 
her life as an angel of light now stood forth 
a demon, clothed with shame and infamy. 

79 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


And now this man who had become a 
traitor to his home becomes a traitor to his 
country. The youth who at the outset 
would have stepped aside from the path 
lest he hurt a young bird was now capable 
of treading the breath from a smiling child 
for the sake of his own safety. His was the 
‘‘sharp mind ina velvet sheath,’’ and his 
also the iron heart to wield the keen blade. 
Since Romola chose to assume an air of 
lofty superiority, with sneers, he decided to 
abandon her and flee to some unknown city 
where he might forget the past and begin 
life afresh. If flight demanded a long 
purse, opportunity offered a way for filling 
his purse with gold. His long and close 
acquaintance with Romola’s uncle made 
him the possessor of Nello’s hope of seeing 
the liberty of Florence restored. Going 
before the prince he sold the information 
that brought several patriots to their death 
and lined his belt with gold andgems. But if 
his falsehood prospered, his fear waxed also, 
for fear had become a habit with him. Not 
that he feared Baldassarre, for confessedly 
the old man wascrazy. Not that he feared 
Romola’s suspicion, for she knew all his 

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George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


treachery. The scaffold, too, had silenced 
Nello’s lips forever. From habit Tito now 
was the slave of terror. 

One night, returning home, he found 
rioting going on in the street, and heard 
the roar of the mob that was preparing to 
attack San Marco. At once he made his 
preparations for flight. When the morning 
came, Tito descended the steps looking 
nearly as brilliant as the day he had crossed 
that threshold to meet Romola. The 
thought of his old life was now cast off, and 
that he was about to enter a new one lent 
him strange excitement. He was to meet his 
man and the mules beyond the Pont Vecchio. 
Hurrying to the bridge, he saw the streets 
thereabout filled with rioters. It was vexa- 
tious, but he must make his way through 
the mob. Once on the bridge, he found 
himself surrounded by a group of men whom 
he recognized as friends of the senators he 
had betrayed. Ina sudden flash he knew 
that these angry men were about to avenge 
their friends, slain through his treachery. 
At sight of Tito their angry yells and exe- 
crations increased. Plainly death was just 
at hand. Inamoment his hat was off, his 

81 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


mantle torn in shreds. Suddenly Tito 
drew forth his purse, and scattering the 
gold and gems, took advantage of the 
open space and leaped from the bridge 
into the Arno below. Once before his 
fine swimming had saved his life. Diving 
under the water, the youth hoped that the 
crowd would think him drowned. If he 
could but swim beyond the bridges, there 
was still a chance of life. On and on he 
swam, passing one bridge after another, 
until he was on the outskirts of the city. 
But excitement had spent his strength, and 
he had been up all the night before. The 
current now began to have its way with 
him. Scarcely conscious, his feet felt the 
shore. But unwittingly the swimmer was 
not alone. One onlooker had seen Tito 
spring into the river—Baldassarre, his 
avenger. The old man was on the bank, 
keeping pace with the swimmer, and when 
at last Tito approached the reeds and fell, 
half fainting, among the rushes, Baldassarre 
leaped like a tiger upon the unconscious 
youth. 

When the swimmer’s eyes opened and the 
light of consciousness vibrated in them, he 

82 


George Eliot’s “Romola” 


looked into the eyes of Baldassarre, but he 
knew not whether it was life or death that 
brought him into the presence of his father. 
In that moment of recognition the remnant 
of strength in the old man leaped into flame. 
Kneeling upon the youth, he clutched his 
throat tighter and tighter. Long after the 
eyes had become rigid and the flesh cold the 
avenger was still there, not daring to trust 
this seeming death. Many hours later a 
peasant saw a startling object lying upon 
the river’s bank. The aged man had fallen 
forward, his dead clutch still upon the 
other’s throat. It was not possible to sep- 
arate them, so the two bodies, now united 
by hate and vengeance as once by love, 
were carried back to the great piazza for 
identification. ‘‘It is the prisoner who 
clutched Tito and convulsed him with ter- 
ror,’ said Piero. ‘‘It is the old man who 
appeared at my banquet,’’ said Rucellai. 
Not so. Those fingers upon the throat of 
Tito were the fingers of Eternal Justice. 
For justice is like ‘‘the kingdom of God—it 
is not without us as a fact; it is within us 
as a great yearning.’’ 

Since Tito’s time, centuries have come 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


and gone. The house of the De Bardi is 
no longer known in Florence. The old 
booths are now in ruins. But could these 
tombs that hold the sacred dust of the blind 
scholar and his beautiful daughter give up 
their dead; could the martyred lips of Savo- 
narola again break forth in speech, these 
would have one message and one warning: 
we knew a youth once who was bright, and 
beautiful, and full of promise. So kind was 
he and gentle that at first the mere thought 
of cruelty made him ill. But because he 
tried to slip out of everything unpleasant, 
and always chose the selfish path, he came 
to do deeds black and infamous. For the 
mere hope of becoming rich and prosperous, 
he was faithless to every trust. Yet what 
he sowed he reaped. He sowed treachery 
toward his city, and reaped the anger of the 
mob. He sowed selfishness toward his home, 
and reaped the contempt of a noble wife. 
He sowed ingratitude toward his father, 
and reaped a hatred that choked out his life. 

Therefore, beware of the beginnings of 
evil. Once disease hath wiped the bloom of 
health and beauty from the cheeks of youth, 
the blush can never be restored. 


84 


George Eliot’s “Romola”’ 


Tamper not with conscience; it is the 
soul’s compass. Reflect that the little 
sins that seem to-day like the soft balls of 
fur, named lions’ cubs, fit for playthings, 
will to-morrow be wild beasts crouching at 
thy door. And if passion leaping from 
its lair hath overcome thee, make instant 
confession, that the soul may recover its 
purity. Forman may beborn again. Christ’s 
love and life and death can consume the 
soul’s transgression. God’s mercy can for- 
give. His deep seas can bury forever sins 
forever forsaken. But if trifling sins oft 
repeated have seared thy conscience, then 
beware! Beware! Beware! A thousand 
times beware! if sin no longer cuts a deep, 
bloody gash in thy heart! Whatsoever a 
man soweth that shall he also reap. ‘‘For 
God will bring every word into judgment, 
with every secret thing, whether it be good 
or whether it be evil.’’ 


85 





IV 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” and the 
Retributive Workings of Conscience— 
A Study of the Necessity and Nobility 
of Repentance, and the Confession of 


Sin 


There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short 
of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered 
words or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be 
buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself 
guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until 
the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. 
Nor have I so read or interpreted Holy Writ as to 
understand the disclosure of human thoughts and 
deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the 
retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. 
No; these revelations, unless I greatly err, are meant 
merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all 
intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that 
day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. 
A knowledge of men’s hearts will be needful to the 
completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, 
moreover, that the hearts holding such miserable 
secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that 
last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutter- 
able.—Scarlet Letter, p. z61. 


88 


IV 


HAWTHORNE’S ‘‘SCARLET LETTER’’ AND 
THE RETRIBUTIVE WORKINGS OF CON- 
SCIENCE—A STUDY OF THE NECESSITY 
AND NOBILITY OF REPENTANCE, AND 
THE CONFESSION OF SIN 


Conceding preéminency in morals and 
reason to the Hebrew and Greek peoples, 
giving the first place in law and philosophy 
to the Latin and German races, let us also 
confess that England holds a unique posi- 
tion in the realm of literature. In the his- 
tory of letters the names most illustrious, 
perhaps, are names of English origin. If 
the critics mention three poets of the first 
order—Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare— 
the greatest of these is the bard of Avon. 
If scholars make a second group for A‘schy- 
lus, Virgil, Milton, and Goethe, the Eng- 
lish poet easily heads this list. If German 
thinkers are preéminent in the realm of 
modern philosophy, it was Francis Bacon 


89 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


who developed the principles of the induc- 
tive system. In the material world, 
nations from time to time exhibit their 
tools, art, and industries. Should an era 
ever come when the great races hold an 
exposition of genius, and display the 
achievements of their poets, essayists, and 
scientists, the English exhibit will ask for a 
large and generous section, while Amer- 
ica’s contribution will need but a modest 
corner. In this court of honor, Emerson 
the essayist, Lowell the scholar, and Long- 
fellow the poet, Motley the historian, and 
Hawthorne the novelist, will doubtless 
obtain recognition and high praise. Con- 
fessedly, from the view-point of fiction, the 
author of ‘‘The Scarlet Letter’’ is the first 
of American authors, and takes high rank 
among the ten great novelists. Renowned 
as a literary artist, he is also unique as a 
teacher of morals. His one theme, never 
forgotten and always insisted upon, is con- 
science and the retributive workings of jus- 
tice. 

In the ‘‘House of Seven Gables,’’ Haw- 
thorne exhibits one generation as sowing 
sins that are seeds whose harvests of penalty 

go 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


are garnered by generations that follow 
after. In the ‘‘Marble Faun,’’ he portrays 
Donatello as ‘‘less man than child, less 
child than animal,’’ who seems a youth 
buoyant and mirthful, as unconscious as a 
big-eyed fawn in the forest, whose con- 
science, through sin and crime, at last 
rouses the youth into self-recognition and 
full manhood. In his ‘‘Septimius Felton, ”’ 
Hawthorne suggests that sins may have 
consequences that reach forward unto im- 
mortality. When a scientist has slain his 
friend, influenced in part by remorse, he 
returns to the spot, to find upon the grave 
a plant with blossoms, crimson and gorgeous 
beyond words, having leaves heavy with 
potent juices, from which he distilled an 
elixir of immortal life, only to find himself 
immortal in woe, agony, and remorse. 
For, like all minds of the first order of 
genius, Hawthorne concerns himself with 
the great problems of the soul. If A¢schy- 
lus exhibits the sinning of Agamemnon as 
pursued by furies, and Virgil made his hero 
to be pursued by fate, Hawthorne makes 
conscience to pursue Dimmesdale. 

Our generation has journeyed far from the 

91 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Puritan era, with its grim justice and its re- 
lentless penalties, but Hawthorne dwelt be- 
neath the dark shadow of the Iron Age. His 
intellect and imagination were alike fasci- 
nated by the Puritan idea of justice. Grim 
men and stern those Puritans named Cotton 
Mather and Jonathan Edwards, having 
neither part nor lot in human infirmities, 
and insensible alike to pleasure and pain. 
Generations of these worthies, with their 
iron rigor, entered into, and, as M. Mon- 
tégut says, ‘‘slowly filtered’’ through Haw- 
thorne, and the precious drops fell into that 
vessel named ‘‘The Scarlet Letter.’’ By 
way of contrast, this study of conscience 
differs from the sentimental novels of to-day 
as an oak tree differs from the hyacinth, as 
a battle-ship differs from a circus wrestler. 
Our age, with its flabby conscience and its 
languid morals, does well to ponder Haw- 
thorne’s pages, to the end that its youth 
may have ‘‘more iron in the blood, more 
brawn and sinew in the intellect, more jus- 
tice in our ethics and politics, more judg- 
ment in the theology.’’* The revival of art 
and letters seems to have fully come. 
* «The Eternal Atonement.’—Hitchcock. 
92 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


Society now needs to add a revival of law, 
justice, and the moral imperative. 

If Kant emphasized the starry heavens 
and the moral law; if Daniel Webster em- 
phasized the thought of personal respon- 
sibility to God, Hawthorne believed the 
greatest thought that can occupy the human 
mind is the thought of justice and its retrib- 
utive workings through conscience. Doubt- 
less there are a thousand problems that 
compete for the attention of youth; but for 
men grown mature and strong, life offers no 
more momentous question than this: Can 
the soul, injured by temptation and scarred 
by sin, ever recover its pristine strength and 
beauty? Is it true that the breach that 
guilt has made in the soul may never be 
repaired, but only guarded and watched, 
while always by the broken wall there lurks 
“‘the stealthy tread of a foe who waits to 
renew his unforgotten triumphs’’? Is there 
no place of recovery, though man seek it 
long with tears? ‘‘I do not know,’’ answers 
the old Greek. ‘‘I donot know that God has 
any right to forgive sins.’’ But Dante, having 
affirmed that man cannot forgive himself, 
thinks that sin may be consumed, and there- 

93 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


fore makes the transgressor walk up a stair- 
way of red-hot marble that pain may con- 
‘sume his iniquities. Though Hawthorne 
dwelt in a grim, dark era, for him there was 
sunlight on the top of the mountains. The 
summer shower, falling softly upon the 
banks of violets, cleanses the soot from 
the blossoms. In the deep forest glen a pure 
spring gushes, and into the deep pool wild 
birds plunge to brighten their dull plumage. 
And Hawthorne felt that somewhere life 
holds a fountain divine for cleansing the dust 
from the soul’s wings. Baring to us all the 
secrets of the human heart, and portraying 
the gradual unfolding of pain and penalty, 
at last he affirms that the sinning soul may 
recover its native simplicity and dignity 
through repentance and confession. There- 
fore, at the very gates of the jail into which 
the prisoner enters, Hawthorne made a rose- 
bush grow, with thorns indeed to typify the 
sharp pains that society inflicts upon the 
wrongdoer, but with blossoms, too, offer- 
ing fragrance to the prisoner as he goes in, 
and suggesting that if the petals fall through 
the frosts of to-day, these falling petals, pass- 
ing into the root, will reappear in the richer 
94 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


blossoms of to-morrow. As if another life 
might recover the disasters of this; as if, no 
matter what man’s harshness, great nature 
and nature’s God hold a wide, deep pity 
that can atone, forgive, and save. 

Recognizing that the pivotal point in 
David's career is the moment of his confes- 
sion in the temple; that through public 
repentance Saul, the murderer, became Paul, 
the apostle; that Judas, upon returning to 
the high priest and flinging down the thirty 
pieces of silver, almost wins a place in our 
regard; Hawthorne believed that everything 
in his drama of the soul must be made to turn 
upon the open confession of sin. There- 
fore, among many possible transgressions 
he selects the one sin that has the most 
reasons against acknowledgment, and the 
one man in the community who would 
suffer the most by telling the truth. And 
that his lesson might be the more convin- 
cing he lends a thousand extenuations to 
the wrongdoers. 

Hawthorne exhibits this daughter of 
beauty and sorrow as the target and wreck 
of misfortune. He takes us back to an 
old English town, to a decayed house of 


95 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


stone, with a broken shield of arms above 
its door in token of its gentility. He shows 
us an anxious but revered father, whose 
spirit has been broken by misfortune; a 
beauteous mother, overzealous for those she 
loves; a daughter, as yet a mere child in 
years and heart, who has suddenly devel- 
oped into the fullness of a glorious woman- 
hood, having all those gifts of rich, warm 
beauty and tall, full figure that lend the 
note of distinction to the daughter of a 
patrician race. 

Then, at a critical moment, we see a man 
of wealth entering the scene and offering 
to repair the family’s misfortunes; a man 
well stricken in years; a mere animated 
bookworm, who takes advantage of the 
daughter’s inexperience and the parents’ 
misfortunes to urge the opportunity of 
home and wealth. Mocking the young 
girl’s protestations that her heart held no 
love for him, by sheer force of will and 
wealth the old scholar carried her off toa 
continental city, with its strange language, 
its tall, gray, forbidding houses, its dark 
cathedral, and in that lonely land the fright- 
ened girl came to seem like a prisoner, 

96 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


whose jailer was the old scholar carrying the 
key to the cell that shut her in. One day, 
when the few English families in Amster- 
dam were about to sail for the New World, 
this bookworm, unwilling to tear himself from 
its libraries, placed the young wife on board 
the ship and sent her away, friendless and 
uncared for, save as gold lends protection, 
while he stayed behind to feed his hungry 
dream of knowledge. On the wharf he 
promised to follow on a later ship. When 
months had passed and the ship in which 
he had sailed was not heard from, this girl, 
whose life had fed upon the scholar’s time- 
worn materials ‘‘like a tuft of green moss 
on a crumbling wall,’’ under new expe- 
riences opened into the fullness of a rich 
womanhood and found a happiness before 
undreamed of. When the ship landed in 
Boston, she entered upon two new worlds. 
If once a deformed and selfish scholar 
had guided her studies, she now passed 
under the influence of a noble youth, trained 
in England’s greatest university, with rare 
native gifts and scholarly acquirements that 
lent their possessor unique eminence. How 
deeply did she regret that irretrievable mis- 
97 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


take. How fierce her hatred of that old man 
who had first deluded and then deserted 
her! What bitterness toward the parents 
who had done her so grievous a wrong! A 
thousand times, also, young Dimmesdale, the 
scholar, indicted that grim Puritanism that 
made marriage impossible for this deserted 
daughter of grace and beauty. <A thousand 
times, too, he indicted Providence for cru- 
elty in stretching forth to him the cup of 
joy only to withdraw it. Society’s laws 
shut him in like a grim and beetling for- 
tress, against whose granite walls he vainly 
struck his bleeding forehead. But if pain 
and disappointment weakened the youth, 
suffering lent the woman strength. In that 
Iron Age for a man to transgress the mar- 
riage law meant not simply disgrace, but 
the dungeon, and death by hanging. So 
the woman swore her fellow-sufferer’s lips to 
silence. Alone she walked her ‘‘ Via Dolo- 
rosa.’’ Alone she went forth into the dark- 
ness and the pitiless storm that now burst 
upon her devoted head. Bearing her own 
pain unaided, she tried to bear another’s 
anguish also. Solitary in the majesty of 
her sacrifice and the beauty of her love, 
98 


Hawthorne’s ‘‘Scarlet Letter”’ 


she seems indeed like our ‘‘Lady of Sor- 


rows.” 

If motives of fear, pride, and love itself 
united to hold the wrongdoer back from 
open acknowledgment, Providence  or- 
dained that events should compel a full 
confession. According to the grim Puritan 
code the offender against the home received 
the brand of a red-hot iron upon the fore- 
head. But when the governor and those 
who had charge of the moral interests of 
the community counseled together, the 
young pastor made so earnest a plea for 
mercy rather than justice that the rulers, in 
a lenient moment, substituted a scarlet letter 
upon the dress for the red brand upon the 
forehead. They also sent forth a solemn 
proclamation commanding the people to 
assemble in the market-place, that the most 
holy community of Massachusetts might 
““show itself righteous by dragging iniquity 
into the sunshine.’’ Then straightway the 
husbandman forgot his tools and the artisan 
his task. Gathering about the pillory, 
the people found there assembled the gov- 
ernor, the counselors, the two pastors, and 
the magistrate. When silence had fallen 

99 


ee (a 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


upon the multitude, an aged teacher arose, 
who, in the face of high heaven, and in the 
presence of all the people, charged home 
the blackness of the transgression and the 
necessity of making known the name of him 
who had led another into a sin so grievous. 

It seemed also the refinement of cruelty 
that the duty of urging her to full speech 
and open confession fell upon him whom 
she had pledged to silence, lest his confes- 
sion bring infamy upon his sacred profession 
and incur the certain death that she had 
escaped by reason of her innocent child. 
Dramatic indeed that scene when the suf- 
ferer from his desk urged his fellow-sufferer 
on her scaffold to believe that it was mis- 
taken pity and kindness not to compel the 
wrongdoer to leave his high position and 
mount the pedestal of ignominy, rather 
than go through life hiding a guilty secret; 
that every consideration of mercy bade her 
give the bitter and wholesome cup to him 
who lacked strength to take it for himself— 
an appeal so broken and so heartrending as 
to cause all hearers to wait with breathless 
expectancy for the wrongdoer to rise up 
and publish his error. But when neither 

100 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


the plea of the friend, the threat of an 
enemy, nor the command of the magistrate 
availed for wringing from the sufferer’s lips 
any word, save the broken exclamation that 
she would never speak, but would fain bear 
another's agony as well as her own, then 
from the lips of Dimmesdale came the 
startled exclamation, ‘‘Oh, wondrous 
strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! 
She will not speak!”’ 

In that moment the man’s dumb lips 
were nigh to full speech. If the all- 
sacrificing love that would die in another’s 
stead melted even the grim magistrates, 
that all-enduring love broke the heart of 
Dimmesdale. Every instinct of manhood 
and honor bade him lift the shield above 
this shrinking sufferer, upon whose head the 
very skies seemed to rain crushing pains and 
burning penalties. But the shadow of the 
scaffold struck terror through him, and back 
he shrank into silence. If the angels of his 
better nature bade him accept the bitter 
cup of death, the demons pushed back the 
cup of pain. saying: ‘‘You may escape the 
prison cell and avoid the scaffold. All yet 
may be well.’’ That night this daughter of 


IOI 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


suffering, sleeping in a dungeon, seemed the 
child of liberty, while Dimmesdale, who 
seemed a free man, became the bond slave 
of sin and the prisoner of fear and remorse. 
Listening, he might have heard the laughter 
of demons rejoicing over the wreck and ruin 
of a man’s soul. From that hour he was 
a target for the slings and arrows of an 
outraged conscience. 

To the proverb, ‘‘Justice holds an even 
scale,’’ must be added the words, ‘‘ Justice 
never slumbers.’’ Transgressions are self- 
punishing. Once men taught that God 
from time to time descends upon evil- 
doers to execute divine wrath and penalty. 
Now we know that every sin journeys for- 
ward fully equipped with instruments for its 
own punishment. Our earth is too small to 
make wrongdoing safe. Be the speck upon 
an apple ever so minute, the decay upon 
one side will journey round and meet the 
corruption upon the other side. Oft eternal 
justice seems to shrink our earth to the size 
of an apple, until at last every wrongdoer 
and his victim stand face to face. 

So it came about that one day the old 
scholar appeared in the market-place at 

102 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


the time of Hester’s ignominious exposure. 
When he beheld the woman in whom he 
had hoped to find embodied the warmth and 
cheerfulness of home set up as a type of sin 
before the people, “‘a creeping horror twisted 
itself across his features, like a snake riding 
over them.’’ Seeking to avoid the conta- 
gion of her dishonor, he resolved not to be 
pilloried on her pedestal of shame. From 
that hour the old man determined to give 
himself to the discovery of Hester’s un- 


known lover. ‘‘I shall know him,’’ he 
whispered. ‘‘In his presence some hidden 
voice will whisper his secret.’’ Having 


sworn secrecy upon the part of the one per- 
son who knew him, he withdrew his name 
from the roll of mankind, and ‘‘ vanished 
out of life as completely as if he indeed lay 
at the bottom of the ocean, to which rumor 
had consigned him.’’ 

Taking the name of Roger Chilling- 
worth, he used his knowledge of medicine 
to strengthen his disguise. As_ skilled 
physicians were rare in the New World, 
he was soon counted as a brilliant acqui- 
sition to the colony. One day, when 
the governor returned from a visit to his 


103 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


pastor, he sent for the old physician, and 
besought him to use his skill in the inter- 
ests of one who seemed about to fall in 
death. If many accounted for the paleness 
of the young man’s cheek by his over- 
study, by his frequent fasts and vigilance, 
others feared that the disease was deeper- 
seated, for “‘his form grew emaciated, his 
voice held a certain melancholy prophecy of 
decay, and in every moment of sudden alarm 
he was seen to put his hand over his heart, 
with first a flush and then a paleness indica- 
tive of pain.’’ 

Once he had taken up his sojourn beneath 
Dimmesdale’s roof, the old physician be- 
came strangely suspicious. Hours there 
were when this youth’s spirit seemed clothed 
with such freshness, fragrance, and dewy 
purity of thought that his speech seemed 
the speech of an angel. If at such times 
Chillingworth turned his suspicions toward 
the magistrate or merchant, he always 
returned to Dimmesdale. Prying into the 
young man’s heart, he burrowed there like 
a miner searching for hidden treasure. 
Leading the scholar to talk of his early life, 
his studies, ambitions, and discouragements, 

104 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


the old man watched for some hint that 
might confirm his secret thought. Yet at 
such times he followed the speaker with as 
cautious a tread and as wary an outlook as 
a thief entering a chamber where a man lies 
half asleep. One day, when several years 
had passed, the old physician brought in 
some poisonous herbs and roots. Asked 
whence they came, the physician answered 
that they grew out of the grave in which 
was buried a man who held a guilty secret. 

When Dimmesdale replied that perchance 
the sufferer earnestly desired to speak, but 
could not, and affirmed his belief ‘‘that in 
the last great judgment day every heart 
that holds a miserable secret will yield it up, 
not with reluctance, but with a joy unutter- 
able,’’ Hawthorne says a strange light 
gleamed out of the old man’s eyes, like one 
of those flashes of ghastly hue that darted 
from Bunyan’s awful doorway in the hillside 
and quivered on the pilgrim’s face. After- 
ward it came about that the physician gave 
his patient a quieting draught, for sleep 
with Dimmesdale had Jong been as fitful as 
a bird that hops from bough to bough. 
When he had fallen into a deep, deathlike 


105 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


torpor the old physician drew back the vest- 
ment from the sleeper’s bosom, and turned 
away with a wild look of wonder, joy, and 
horror. ‘‘Had aman seen old Roger Chil- 
lingworth at that moment of ecstasy,’’ says 
Hawthorne, ‘‘he would have had no need 
to ask how Satan deports himself when a 
precious soul is lost to heaven and won into 
his community.”’ 

Now that he knew the guilty man’s 
secret, the malicious enemy, under pretense 
of friendship, proceeded to wreak upon his 
sufferer such vengeance as had never before 
been conceived by an enemy. He became 
the chief inquisitor in that torture chamber 
named the sufferer’s heart. Every morn- 
ing for a few minutes he stretched his victim 
upon the rack. Every evening he lifted his 
hand, and by suggestions caused a thousand 
ghastly phantoms of death, or, still more 
awful, shame, to rise up and point their 
fingers at his breast. But conscience was 
the chiefest scourge. For Dimmesdale’s 
was not the cold, hard, iron intellect that, 
when long time hath passed, can leave both 
the sin and the memory thereof in the for- 
gotten past. To his keen intellect he added 

106 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


sensitive spiritual nature, moral sympathy, 
unwonted powers of affection and aspira- 
tion—the temperament of which martyrs 
have always been made. 

Oft, looking out upon his audience, he 
told his hearers that he was blacker than the 
blackest, his whole life a lie and a delusion, 
his heart full of sins that were red like scarlet. 
And yet his fame for righteousness grew 
more and more. In a secret chest, under 
lock and key, he hid a bloody scourge, with 
which he plied his shoulders. Fasting by 
day, he kept long vigils by night, until his 
brain reeled and his strength failed. In one 
of those half-unconscious hours he saw a 
herd of demons drawing near, beckoning him 
to join their company. Once, when an 
angel band approached, as if for convoy, the 
celestial beings started back in horror and 
fled, for they recognized his guilty secret. 
Saddest of all, the ghost of his revered 
mother approached, only to pass by without 
casting a single pitying look behind. 

One midnight hour, while he kept his 
vigil, a sudden flash of lightning revealed 
the scaffold, and something suggested that 
upon that spot perchance he might find rest 


107 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


and peace. Softly creeping down the stair- 
way, he lifted the latch, stole out into the 
night, made his way to the pillory, and 
ascended the scaffold, now blackened by the 
storms-of seven long years. For his soul 
was thirsting for confession as pilgrims in a 
desert thirst for the spring of living water. 
When sin warps the soul out of line, repent- 
ance springs it back again to its normal 
place. He who has pondered long life’s 
deepest problems knows that memory holds 
no dearer recollection than hours when the 
erring child moves from sin toward confes- 
sion and forgiveness. Disobedient, the 
child fears the parent’s disapproval. Dread- 
ing the discovery, it conceals the sin through 
deceit. Soon the sweetness of the stolen 
pleasure passes away. Remorse makes a 
dark cloud to overshadow the child. Each 
moment increases the gloom. And when 
the darkness falls and the prayers are said, 
and the light is turned out, and the moth- 
er’s kiss leaves the child alone, with solitude 
comes increased sorrow. Because its first 
lie is asin greater than it can bear, the child 
calls aloud, and flinging itself into the arms 
of the returning mother, in a wild, passion- 


108 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


ate abandon of tears and sobs pours forth 
the full story of its sin, and, mingling its 
torrent with the parent’s tears, is cleansed 
in that deep fountain named the mother’s 
heart. What hour in life holds a happiness 
so deep and sweet as that hour of confession 
and forgiveness for the child, when it falls 
asleep, having recovered its simplicity? 
And men are but children grown tall and 
strong. If the years increase, the sins of 
maturity also gather volume and terror. 
Dimmesdale’s soul was thirsting for confes- 
sion. Full speech would have recovered him 
to his native beauty and simplicity. But 
silence was fast bringing him to the verge of 
lunacy. 

Not until seven full years had passed by 
did Hester suddenly realize that the old 
physician had discovered Dimmesdale’s 
secret, and, fiendlike, had tortured his vic- 
tim to the verge of lunacy. If once she 
had been unequal to a combat with the keen 
scholar, suffering and struggle had now lent 
her strength, while the old man’s hatred 
and revenge had made him weak. Seeking 
an interview, she told Chillingworth plainly 
that she had determined to reveal his name, 


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even if it cost the life of his victim. Then 
she stretched out hands of help and succor 
toward one from whom she had been sepa- 
rated for these many years. But death 
itself would have been less painful than that 
meeting. Grievous indeed the shock of 
the discovery that his enemy had violated 
all the sanctities of his soul! Little wonder 
that for an hour the very foundations of 
reason trembled for the broken-hearted man. 

Shattered in health, temptations sprang 
up and threatened to destroy what manhood 
was left. Then the woman’s strength lent 
guidance and counsel. Surely the bound- 
less forest could hide him from the gaze of 
Roger Chillingworth. The sea would bear 
him to the Old World, where perchance he 
might rebuild his ruined life. On the mor- 
row, indeed, a ship was to sail for England. 
Once the decision was made to sail with 
it, Dimmesdale felt his old life fall like a 
worm-eaten garment from his shoulders. 
Rising up from that interview, he who had 
been sick, sin-stained, sorrow-blackened, 
felt almost joy again. His was the exulta- 
tion of the prisoner who had just escaped 
from the dungeon of his own heart. When 


110 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


the night fell it found him fully prepared 
for flight upon the morrow. Yet that hour 
was big with peril. Never had there been 
a darker moment in this man’s career. For 
years the angels of his better nature had 
been seeking to draw him to that one place 
where he might recover manhood—the scaf- 
fold. And now he was about to put the 
ocean between himself and that pillory 
where he ought to stand. That night, while 
all men slept, God heaved this man’s soul 
“like an ocean.’’ It was as if the angels 
divine had redoubled their efforts, making 
one last, long struggle to redeem this suf- 
ferer back to truth and his native purity and 
beauty. 

When the momentous day dawned for 
Dimmesdale it brought the duties of the 
election ceremony. In the morning a 
solemn procession of the citizens was 
formed. To the sound of military music 
soldiers clad in burnished steel marched 
toward the church, where solemn ceremonies 
lent dignity to the ballot and clothed the 
citizen with the rank of sovereign. When 
the governor and his counselors were seated 
within the sacred building, and silence had 


IIl 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


fallen upon the multitude without, through 
the open windows of the church came the 
voice of the speaker. Under the stimulus 
of his excitement the powerful intellect of 
Dimmesdale now took up his enfeebled 
body and lent it strength. And yet his 
physician knew that already he was stricken 
with death and was tottering to his end. 
Standing beside the pillory that seven years 
before had witnessed her ignominy, Hester, 
listening, heard his voice, with its old, rich, 
deep tones, indeed rising higher and higher, 
yet underneath the full tones she heard the 
low, pathetic undertones of pain. In 
prophetic mood the speaker was forecasting 
the future of the colony, and he prophesied 
a high and glorious destiny for the young 
republic. Borne forward upon his tumultu- 
ous speech, the hearers felt that such inspira- 
tion had never before been lent to mortal 
lips. It was as if ‘‘an angel in his journey 
through the skies had stayed his flight, 
hanging above the people, at once a shadow 
and a splendor, and had cast down a shower 
of golden truths upon the beholders.’’ For 
Dimmesdale it was the proudest eminence 
to which gifts of intellect, vast learning, 


II2 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” 


and great eloquence could exalt a public 
teacher. And when the speaker had com- 
pleted, the enthusiasm was beyond all 
bounds. 

The solemn ceremony of the day com- 
pleted, the orator took the governor’s arm, 
heading the procession as it marched out. 
But once he was in the open air, Dim- 
mesdale turned to the pillory and swiftly 
ascended the scaffold. Then a great awe 
fell upon the multitude. In his excite- 
ment the old physician sprang forward, 
whispering: ‘‘Madman! what doest thou? 
All shall be well. I can yet save you. Do 
not bring infamy upon your sacred profes- 
sion.”’ Dimmesdale, now triumphant over 
sin, replied, ‘‘Tempter, thou art too late; 
with God’s help I will escape thee.’’ To 
which his enemy answered, ‘‘In all the 
world there was no one place so secret—no 
high place nor lowly place where thou couldst 
have escaped me—save this  scaffold.’’ 
Then, supported by one beside whom he 
should have stood seven years before, in 
the presence of all the people, he tore off 
his cloak of lies blackening his name—not 
knowing that he cleansed it—dishonoring 

113 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


his reputation as a moral teacher —not 
knowing that Christianity at last had become 
powerful upon his lips. In that moment of 
bitter repentance, like David, the sin-dying 
man recovered his soul to its native simplicity 
and beauty. Stricken with awe, the behold- 
ers saw, as it were, a great light. Then the 
flame of life for this dying man burned low in 
the socket, quivered one moment—then went 
out forever. When a great ship goes down 
at sea, the swirling currents eddy round with 
low, deep murmurs, and when the multitude 
at last broke into the voice of wonder, deep 
answered unto deep, while their murmurs 
rolled after the departed spirit. 

_The centuries have come and gone, the 
scaffold now is dust, the scarlet letter is a 
legend; yet through the silent air there falls 
the still, small voice, whispering: ‘‘ Behold, 
thou art the man.’’ If God’s good provi- 
dence hath held thee back from such suffer- 
ing and sin as overtook thy fellow-mortal, 
surely some selfish thought, some unholy 
purpose, hath lent its stain to thy secret life. 
Alas! alas! for him whose prayer is the 
Pharisee’s of old, ‘‘God, I thank thee that 
I am not as other men are, extortioners, 


114 


Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”’ 


unjust, adulterers!’’ Happy, thrice happy, 
those who smite upon the breast, saying, 
‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’’ Thou 
child of strength and youth, hast thou de- 
frauded thine employers? Think not by 
flight to escape the demons who pursue thee. 
Flee not from, but to thine employer! Mak- 
ing full restitution, lose thou his regard, and 
recover thine own respect and God’s ap- 
proval. Thou prodigal son, far hast thou 
wandered from thy mother’s knee! Long 
hast thou dwelt in Circe’s palace! Deeply 
hast thou drank of cups of flame! Know 
that the path of repentance alone will lead 
thee back to thy Father’s house! There is 
welcome, mercy, healing, and recovery for 
thy wrecked and ruined life. Thou daugh- 
ter of beauty, whose crown is loveliness, 
thou of the disheveled locks, with the lights 
and shadows still upon thy mantling hair, 
the time was that, walking in thy father’s 
garden, the anemones beneath thy feet were 
not so sweet as thy pure heart. Wing- 
caught art thou, like a bird in the thicket! 
But know that there is one heart that aches 
for thee, the Divine Heart, who knows all, 
who understands all, who will forgive all, 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


who will make thee to forget all! Thou who 
hast gone through the thunder of life's battle 
and who dost sit now upon thy western 
piazza, waiting for life’s sun to set, even thy 
wounds may be healed, thy hurts be helped, 
for thou mayst return to the days when the 
heart is young. For men high and men 
low, for men on the throne, for men in the 
dungeon and on the gibbet, for all wounded, 
bleeding, broken hearts, there is welcome, 
healing, and recovery. One duty is thine— 
repentance and confession. One place in 
the universe there is where thou mayst 
escape thy sin—the place called Calvary. 
Climbing thy pillory, fling thine arms about 
the cross. To flee from Christ, flee thou to 
Him! ‘‘Behold thou the Lamb of God, 
who taketh away the sin of the world.’’ 


116 


V 


Victor Hugo’s ‘ Les Miserables ”—The 
Battle of the Angels and the Demons 
for Man’s Soul. How Jean Valjean 
was Recovered from Passion and Sin to 
Christian Service and Self-sacrifice 


117 


There was a moment during which he regarded 
his future. Denounce himself! great heavens! give 
himself up! He thought with immense despair of all 
that he must give up, of all that he must resume. He 
would be forced to bid adieu to this good, pure, radiant 
life—to the respect of all classes—to honor, to liberty! 
He would no longer walk about the fields, he would 
not hear the birds sing in May, nor give alms to the 
little children! He would no longer feel the sweet- 
ness of glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him! 
He would leave this little house, which he had built, 
and his little bedroom. All appeared charming to 
him at this moment. He would no longer read those 
books or write at the little deal table; his old servant 
would no longer bring up his coffee in the morning. 
Great God! instead of all this there would be the 
gang, the red jacket, the chain on his foot, fatigue, 
the dungeon, the camp-bed, and all the horrors he 
knew! At his age, after all he had borne! And 
whatever he might do, he ever fell back into this 
crushing dilemma, which was the basis of his reverie 
—remain in paradise, and become a demon there; 
or re-enter hell, and become an angel? Thus the 
wretched soul writhed in agony! Eighteen hundred 
years before this unhappy man, the mysterious being 
in whom are embodied all the sanctities and suffer- 
ings of humanity, had also, while the olive trees shud- 
dered in the fierce wind of the infinite, long put away 
with his hand the awful cup which appeared to him, 
dripping with shadow and overflowing with darkness 
in the starry depths. 

I presume that all of you consider me worthy of 
pity? Great God! when I think of what I was on the 
point of doing, I consider myself worthy of envy. 
Still, I should have preferred that all this had not 
taken place.—Fantine, Db. 350, 351, 352, 410. 


V 


VICTOR HUGO’S ‘‘LES MISERABLES’’—THE 
BATTLE OF THE ANGELS AND THE 
DEMONS FOR MAN’S SOUL. HOW JEAN 
VALJEAN WAS RECOVERED FROM PAS- 
SION AND SIN TO CHRISTIAN SERVICE 
AND SELF-SACRIFICE 


Literature includes four epic poems of the 
first rank of genius. In the order of time 
these are the ‘‘Iliad,’’ the ‘‘Aéneid,’’ the 
*‘Divine Comedy,’’ and the ‘‘Paradise 
Lost.’’ Strangely enough, these primary 
springs of education for four nations have 
one and the same theme—the divineness of 
man’s soul, its loss, and its recovery also. 
Homer’s ‘‘Iliad’’ sings the wrath of Peleus’s 
son, the consequent woes that overtook the 
Greeks, and shows how one sin can pull 
down a structure that many virtues must 
build up. Virgil’s ‘‘ Aineid’’ is an allegory 
of the ages of man, telling us youth wanders 
far astray, while maturity seeks out harbors 

119 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of refuge. In the ‘‘Divine Comedy”’ ‘‘ten 
silent centuries find their voice,’’ while 
Dante sings of the soul’s injury by sin, its 
purification, and also its perfection. Mil- 
ton, in his sublime epic, looks out upon 
man’s tragic career, and follows the “‘Lost 
Paradise’ with the ‘‘ Paradise Found,’’ try- 
ing ‘‘to justify the ways of God to men.”’ 
To these poems must be added two works 
that are not epic in form. The “‘Idylls of 
the King’’ is Tennyson’s ‘‘ Paradise Lost,’’ 
with this all-controlling thought—if one 
error ruins the soul, a divine Friend there 
is who toils tirelessly to recover the un- 
dimmed splendor. In the realm of prose, 
Victor Hugo’s ‘‘Les Miserables’’ represents 
the first attempt in fiction to show that if 
sin dims the divine image, conscience dis- 
turbs the soul with sore discontent, while 
Christ never despairs of making bad men 
good, but toils ever on until publican and 
outcast alike stand forth, clothed with every 
courage, every heroism, and every virtue, 
being of goodness all compact. 

When our literary critics call the roll of 
the great novels, with striking unanimity 
they give ‘‘Les Miserables’’ the first place. 


120 


Victor Hugo's “Les Miserables” 


In this book Victor Hugo portrays those 
representatives of society called legislators, 
judges, bishops, policemen, the lover and 
the child, as lesser planets, moving round a 
giant soul who is ‘‘the incarnation of all the 
social misery of his time.’’ In these pages 
we see how God uses conscience to waken 
a dead soul and “‘plague the sinful man with 
dark despair’’ until the conscience that first 
made a coward of a bad man at last makes 
a hero of agoodman. The problem which 
this book treats is the most perplexing 
problem that has ever faced thinking men. 
The giants of strength and intellect and the 


children of ease, friendship, and opportunity 


occasion little anxiety to philosophers. 
But the submerged classes, with their men- 
dicancy, drunkenness, poverty, and crime, 


fill the heart of good men with anguish, and : 


even with despair. Over against these chil- 
dren of good fortune, who live lives shel- 
tered by love, are those who seem chosen 
to misfortune, ingratitude, and shame. 
These seem to go through life pelted with 
troubles as with fiery hail. Feeling that 
they are unloved by God and unregarded by 
men, they wander forth like King Lear with 


I21 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


uncovered heads into life’s darkness and the 
driving storm. For whether we are citizens 
of Chicago or New York, citizens of London 
or Paris, we must confess that it is but a 
step from the parliament houses and the 
palaces to regions where men are huddled 
together in tenement-houses like beasts, 
eating, drinking, working, cursing, dying in 
the same close, foul den, over whom vices 
and sin sweep with the force of destroying 
waves. 

On lord mayor’s day in London, the city 
fathers and merchants, lords and ladies, 
clothed in purple and fur, drove in stately 
procession from St. Paul’s to the house of 
parliament. On the morning after Dives 
had his procession, Lazarus went forth for 
his parade. Men and women out of work 
walked in a procession of dumb despair, the 
men with gaunt and hungry faces, the 
women and children emaciated and with 
tattered garments, their strength anger, 
their bread bitterness, their nights despair. 
Every great city includes among its people 
multitudes that are debased to the level of 
beasts and are as ignorant as savages. 
Looking out upon this multitude that 

122 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


goes throbbing, blundering, falling, bleeding 
through life, the man who loves his kind oft 
cries out: “‘Does God behold this piteous 
tragedy? How can He stand the sight of 
this anguish? Has He, who once was kindly, 
become cold? Has He, who once was near, 
become vague and afar off? Having lingered 
long over Christ’s idea of man and God, Vic- 
tor Hugo determined to write the story of 
God’s pathetic struggle to recover man 
from ignorance, squalor, and crime to his 
pristine splendor, exhibiting the Divine One 
as ever near to each wanderer, His mighty 
and majestic heart throbbing mercy and 
pulsating love—a God who never doubts 
but that at last He will win man back to 
rectitude, purity, and divine goodness. For 
among all the great books of fiction ‘‘Les 
Miserables’ is unique, in that it exhibits 
the worst man as having a divine spark that 
no injustice can extinguish, a spark which 
God guards and feeds, making it incorrupt- 
ible in this life and immortal in the next. 
Consider the man who represents the out- 
casts and stands for the uttermost of suffer- 
ing and sin as a test of God’s power to 
recover and save. In an era when princes 


123 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


oppressed peasants and plundered them, 
Jean Valjean was the child of a woodchop- 
per. Very early in life he was robbed of 
his parents, who, stricken with sickness, 
died from lack of proper food and medicine. 
Reared by his married sister, when he was 
seventeen Jean saw her husband lying dead 
upon a heap of straw, while seven little chil- 
dren, with piteous sobs, clung to their fa- 
ther’s dead hands. Then for ten years the 
boy toiled, as brother, husband, and father, 
receiving sixteen sous a day for seventeen 
hours of work. Oft when the children were 
hungry he bowed his head over his bowl of 
porridge, that unseen he might slip his 
piece of bread into the hand of the crying 
child. Once, when the two little’ girls went 
to a neighbor’s hut and said their mother 
wished to buy a quart of milk—milk which 
they drank to satisfy their cravings—Jean 
paid the debt to save the children pun- 
ishment. | 

For years he rose a great while be- 
fore day and toiled until long after the 
darkness fell. In childhood and youth he 
knew neither teacher nor sweetheart nor 
friendship. The winter he was twenty- 

124 


Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miserables” 
seven the snow came early, and the cold 
was pitiless. Unfortunately, he found him- 
self without work, and daily the children 
cried for bread. One night, dumb with their 
pain, little Jean, beholding bread in the 
baker’s window, suddenly struck the glass 
with his fist, pulled out a loaf of bread, 
and carried it home to the children, that, 
satisfied, they might sleep. 

The next morning his bleeding arm and 
his own confession convicted the youth of 
theft. With solemn ceremony, the state 
assembled its representatives and proclaimed 
a human shipwreck. Having tried him for 
burglary and violence, he was condemned to 
the galleys for five years. When the judge 
bade the soldiers rivet the iron collar about 
his neck, an old man who witnessed the 
scene said that Jean Valjean sobbed and 
moaned, and, lifting his right arm in the 
air, lowered it seven times, ever moaning 
the names of the seven children whom he 
said now must starve. After four years in 
the galleys, companying with thieves and 
murderers, who seemed to him none other 
than human devils, Jean grew desperate and 
tried to escape. Caught after long hiding 


125 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


in a heap of rubbish, three years were 
added to his sentence. Later, when the 
attempt to escape was repeated, his sentence 
was again increased. One day, after nine- 
teen years of imprisonment, he who had 
gone in sobbing and shuddering came out 
with a heart as cold as granite and a will as 
hard as steel. 

Often while pounding upon his stone- 
heap or lying on the convict’s plank he 
had instituted a court of justice, and 
weighed out judgment and penalty. On 
the one hand he tried and condemned him- 
self. He freely confessed that children 
can endure hunger long without dying; 
that begging bread or borrowing it is better 
than stealing it; that starving was less than 
imprisonment, and that in any case sin 
never halves misfortunes, but only doubles 
them. But, on the other hand, he asked 
whether society did not owe something to 
his sister’s orphan children; whether, in view 
of his twenty-seven years of honest labor, 
society did not owe him work; whether, 
when he had confessed his fault to the 
judge, society had not by its excess of pen- 
alty wrought a crime against a citizen, a 

126 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


crime that for nineteen years had been com- 
mitted afresh daily upon his head. So he 
tried society, and found it guilty of injus- 
tice. He tried Providence, and found Him 
responsible for his misfortunes. He tried 
the laws of the state, and found them cruel 
and unfair, and because he felt that he had 
reason and justice on his side, his heart was 
full of fierce indignation. Jean Valjean left 
the prison knowing that he was cruel, be- 
cause he felt the wolf’s instinct to rend and 
tear. He knew that he had become bitter, 
because he made his knife sharp against his 
fellows. He knew that he was allied to 
demons, because his heart was full of mur- 
derous hate. Can a leopard change his 
spots? Can a cold marble statue weep? 
Jean Valjean had not shed a tear for nine- 
teen years! God alone seems equal to that 
emergency called a bad man’s heart. 

Over against this convict, injured by his 
own sins, brutalized by man’s injustice, 
cursed with hatred and consumed with a 
vain, passionate desire to injure someone, 
stands the bishop, whom Victor Hugo 
exhibits as entering the lists to battle with 
demons for the soul of Jean Valjean. Bun- 

127 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


yan dreamed his ‘‘Great Heart,’’ but Victor 
Hugo must have known some pastor of 
quality so rare that single-handed he could 
sweeten an entire province. The bishop 
was generous, and having fifteen thousand 
francs annually, he gave fourteen thousand 
to the poor. He was a student of books, 
but his love for men in trouble amounted to 
a passion. He visited the poor so long as 
he had money in his pockets, then he vis- 
ited the rich to fill his purse for further 
benefactions. His sympathy was divine. 
When a peasant mourned for wife or child, 
the good bishop sought him out, and hav- 
ing the art of holding his tongue, sat for 
hours without speaking a word to the heart- 
broken man. 

Was a youth overtaken in a sin, he would 
say to the magistrate, ‘‘We ourselves are 


ex-sinners; let us be charitable.’’ When 
a man was caught red-handed in a theft, 
the bishop said: ‘‘Sin is a darkness of 


the mind. The state that permitted igno- 

rance and darkness for this youth should 

now be sent to jail with the thief.’’ One 

day a young man, for love of a girl and her 

child, made counterfeit coin. When the 
128 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables’’ 


girl was arrested, faithful to her love, she 
denied that her lover had given her the 
false money. Then the attorney for the state 
conceived the plan of provoking her jeal- 
ousy by declaring her lover had been un- 
faithful, and exhibiting bits of letters. 
When she believed her lover recreant to 
his vows she became desperate, and making 
a full confession, convicted both the accused 
man and herself, and so was condemned to 
death. When the people applauded the 
attorney’s skill, the bishop exclaimed, 
*‘This man and woman will go to the scaf- 
fold, but who is to hang the state’s attor- 
ney?’’ 

Once the bishop returned home after a 
protracted absence. On the following 
morning a chest was found at his door, 
within which were a golden cross, a miter 
rich with gems, a studded crozier, and the 
royal robes worn by bishops. It was the 
brigands’ present to the priest, who had 
gone,to their camp to plead with them to 
give up their life of sin. For this bishop is 
Bunyan’s ‘‘Great Heart.’’ What kindness 
to the poor! What tenderness toward the 
outcast and sinners! What pity for 

129 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


orphans and the fatherless! Little wonder 
that single-handed the bishop redeemed his 
diocese to virtue and integrity. Nothing 
can withstand love’s sweet solicitude. Love 
melts the heart like wax. It warms like 
sunshine. If oft arguments harden, love 
can redeem and save. 

Unfortunately, when freedom brought a 
new era, Jean Valjean fell upon other forms 
of injustice. For his nineteen years of toil 
he should have received from the state one 
hundred and seventy-one francs, but, on 
various pleas, the warden kept back sixty 
francs. On the morning of his release, daz- 
zled with liberty, Jean made his way to the 
dock. Finding the workmen were receiving 
thirty sous a day, he immediately joined the 
laborers. That night the master paid him 
fifteen sous, saying, ‘‘That is enough for 
you.’’ When Jean insisted upon his rights, 
the captain said, ‘‘Mind you do not get into 
prison again.’’ But since society continued 
to rob him, he now began to hunger for a 
chance to rob society of something. The 
next day, consumed with bitterness, Jean 
started toward his native province. When 
the darkness of a chill October night fell, he 


130 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


entered a village, only to find that the po- 
liceman made him show his yellow ticket, 
and treated him as though he were less than 
a man and hardly a beast. Entering an 
inn, before his supper was ready, something 
aroused the landlord’s suspicion. Finding 
the stranger had been a convict, he refused 
Jean food and lodging, and drove him from 
his door. Learning there was still another 
inn, Jean called for the landlord and, said, 
*‘T am dying of hunger; I have been on my 
legs since sunrise, and have walked twelve 
leagues.’’ But a traveler sitting by the 
fireside made an imperceptible sign, and 
after a whispered consultation the keeper 
opened the door and said, roughly, ‘‘ Be off!’’ 

In his despair the man now made his way 
to a peasant’s house in the edge of the vil- 
lage. Looking through the window, he saw 
a table spread with white linen, a smoking 
dish upon the stove, a father laughing at 
the child upon his knee, and pensively 
thought that such happiness would surely 
know pity. Knocking at the door, the 
man asked why he did not go to this inn 
and that. Finding that Jean had been re- 
fused at both, he suddenly exclaimed, ‘‘Can 


131 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


you be the man?’’ Then, dropping the 
child, he picked up his gun, while the 
woman drew her children back, and cried, 
‘“The villain!’’ After studying Jean as if 
he had been a viper, the man exclaimed, 
‘‘Be gone!’’ ‘‘For mercy’s sake, a glass of 
water!’’ ‘To which the answer was, ‘‘ Rather 
a charge of shot.’’ Going away, he saw 
the woman carry food out to the dog in its 
kennel, and exclaimed, ‘‘ And I am not even 
a dog!’’ An hour later, in his despair, he 
threw himself down upon the moor. But 
the rain-clouds upon the horizon were not 
so dark as the black looks that lay upon his 
forehead. Suddenly the lightning leaped 
from cloud to cloud—strange type of the 
hatred that leaped from his heart toward 
some one whom it might strike and burn 
and wither. Falling upon his knees on the 
ground, through very weakness, Jean 
looked toward the village, and shook his 
clinched fists at the lights of the houses; 
shook them at the stars in the sky; cursed 
man below, and cursed an unseen One who 
dwells above the stars and beyond them. 
Dark indeed the hour when man cries, 
‘‘No one cares for my soul.”’ 
132 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”’ 


But if landlords were inhospitable, their 
cruelty was destined to deflect Jean’s steps 
toward the bishop’s door. When darkness 
fell, a neighbor came in to warn the bishop 
that there was a treacherous character in 
town, and a moment later there was a loud 
knock at the door. The man who entered 
was apparently in middle life, rough, bold, 
violent, with a fierce and sinister light glow- 
ing in his eyes. Standing in the red glow 
of the fire, his face became hideous. 
**Look here,’’ he said, in a loud voice, ‘‘I 
am a galley slave. Here is my passport. It 
reads ‘five years for robbery, with house- 
breaking, and fourteen years for trying to 
escape four times. The man is very dan- 
gerous.’ Now will you give me some food 
and a bed? I can sleep in the stable.’’ The 
good bishop was kindness itself. ‘‘Sit 
down, sir, and warm yourself. You will 
sup with us. Afterward your bed will be 
made ready.’’ 

Hardly understanding, Jean began to 
stammer like a lunatic. Stupefaction, 
doubt, and joy bewildered his speech. 
When he urged that he had money, the 
bishop made him understand that he was a 


133 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


priest, and not a landlord, and said: ‘‘You 
are welcome. This is not my house, but 
the house of Christ. Your name, sir, was 
known to me before you gave me your pass- 
port. You are my brother.”’ Years later, 
recalling that hour, Jean remembered that 
if a moment before he was faint with 
hunger, the bishop’s kindness made his hun- 
ger to pass, and that word “‘sir’’ was more 
to him than acup of water to a shipwrecked 
sailor. ‘‘You have suffered greatly,’’ said 
the bishop, gently, gazing long into the 
fire. ‘‘Oh! the dogs are happier! Nineteen 
years! The red jacket, the cannon ball on 
the foot, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, 
labor, blows, the double chain for a nothing, 
the dungeon for a word, even when you are 
ill in body, and the chain gang.’’ ‘‘A place 
of sorrow indeed,’’ mused the bishop; ‘‘but 
there is more joy in heaven over one repent- 
ant sinner than over the white robes of 
ninety and nine just men. Ah! sir, if you 
leave the prison with thoughts of hatred 
and anger, you are worthy of pity. But if 
you leave it with thoughts of gentleness and 
peace toward those who have injured you, 
you are better than any of us.”’ 


134 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


After supper, the bishop took one of 
the silver candlesticks, and handing the 
other to Jean, led him to his room. But 
when the convict saw that his bed was next 
to that of the bishop, he drew back, folded 
his arms, looked at his host fixedly, and ex- 
claimed: “‘‘What! lodge me so close as that! 
How do you know I am not a murderer?’’ 
‘**That is between you and God,’’ exclaimed 
the bishop. Then, lifting his hand, he 
blessed the man, and wishing him good 
night, turned and left the room. 

At midnight that night, startled by the 
cathedral bells that pealed the hour of two, 
Jean wakened, dazed by his surroundings. 
Sitting up, strange, confused thoughts ran 
wildly through his brain. The thought 
that was uppermost was that the hour had 
come for revenge upon society. He had 
seen the servant put the silver plate into the 
cupboard near at hand. The soup ladle 
alone was worth more than he had received 
for nineteen years of work. Thoughts of 
liberty, revenge, murder, flight, and wealth 
chased through his mind, as tiger cubs play 
in an open glade in a jungle. When the 
clock struck three he sprang up, pushed 

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open the bishop’s door, and lo! there in the 
moonlight lay the aged bishop, his white 
hair falling from his noble forehead, his 
brow clothed with beauty and majesty as 
with garments. Transfixed with terror, Jean 
gazed upon that face as upon a vision. 
Artists place a halo about their saints, but 
in his excited state the convict saw above 
the bishop’s brow a nimbus of radiant hope 
and peace. There was something indescrib- 
ably solemn and majestic in the peaceful 
sleep of the saintly man. In his agitation 
the convict forgot that murder was in his 
heart, forgot the club in his hand, forgot 
that he had thought to slay his bene- 
factor. Stricken with terror, his teeth 
chattered and he grew faint with fear. When 
the bishop moved in his sleep, Jean felt the 
arteries in his temple beat like two forge 
hammers, his breath seemed to issue from 
his lungs with the noise of the winds raging 
from a cavern, while the hinge turning 
sounded like the noise of an earthquake. 
When no one roused, his hand released its 
grasp upon the crowbar. Turning to flee 
from the bishop, as a demon flees from an 
angel, the convict saw the case of silver, 
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Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


and thrusting it under his arm, entered the 
garden, leaped over the wall, and fled like 
a tiger into the darkness of the night. 

But going, he was destined to return. 
The morning that brought the breakfast hour 
to the bishop brought also five soldiers with 
Jean Valjean and the stolen silver. When 
the officers entered, the bishop advanced at 
once, and stretching out his hand to Jean, 
exclaimed: ‘‘So you have come back, my 
good friend. Here is the rest of your silver. 
In giving you the plate I gave you the can- 
dlesticks also. They alone will fetch you 
two hundred francs.’’ Dismissed, the sol- 
diers went away, and left Jean to the bishop. 
The convict trembled in all his limbs, and 
the cold sweat stood on his brow. He 
looked on the point of fainting. Then the 
bishop went to the mantel, fetched the can- 
dlesticks and handed them to Jean, who 
took them mechanically and with wonder- 
ing looks. ‘‘Never forget that you have 
promised me to employ this money in be- 
coming an honest man,’’ said the bishop. 
Having no recollection of having promised 
anything, Jean Valjean stood silent. Then 
the good man stretched forth his hand 

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Great Books as Life-T eachers 


and said: ‘‘My brother! You no longer 
belong to evil, but to good. I have bought 
your soulof you. I withdraw it from black 
thoughts and the spirit of perdition and give 
it unto God.’’ 

In his great picture, Retzch shows us 
angels and demons struggling for the soul 
of Faust. Oft the demons wing their 
arrows with flame, but the angels pull roses 
from the bushes of paradise, and, leaning 
over the battlements, cast them upon the 
heads of the combatants. Falling upon the 
demons, the blossoms turn to coals of fire, 
but falling upon Faust, they healed his 
hurts. In that moment when the convict 
turned from the bishop’s door, there was 
begun a life-and-death struggle for the soul 
of Jean Valjean. All morning he wandered 
about the lonely and deserted moor. Jean 
had eaten nothing, yet he was not hungry. 
He walked round and round incessantly, yet 
was not weary. Oft his agitation was such 
that he wished himself again in his prison 
cell. Against the softness that now swept 
over him he set the hardness of twenty 
years. When a sweetbrier in the hedge 
reminded him of his mother’s garden, his 

138 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”’ 


throat choked, and this emotion filled him 
with new terror. Clinching his fists, he set 
himself to hold on to the hatred and ven- 
geance that seemed in danger of dissolving. 

The falling twilight found him seated under 
a bush beside the path. By chance a little 
boy crossing the field saw his dark figure, 
and with a sharp cry dropped his bundle and 
a two-franc piece that rolled against the 
stick of the convict. Thrusting out his 
foot, Jean covered the coin. When the 
child asked for his silver, the man sprang up, 
and lifting his stick, cried out against the 
little stranger. Not until the boy had fled 
did Jean realize that he had stolen the coin. 

Then the thought that he was a thief 
went through him like a knife. Uncon- 
sciously a change had taken place in him. 
Victor Hugo tells us he had become inca- 
pable of stealing. Forgetting his silver 
plate, Jean bounded along the path, calling 
wildly for the child. In vain he looked 
everywhither. His heart was going like a 
trip-hammer, his teeth were chattering, 
though not with the night wind, while the 
bushes waved their arms like angels of 
penalty. The light that the good bishop 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


had poured in upon his darkened mind 
blinded him. His soul seemed like an owl 
surprised with the excess of light. Con- 
science whispered that he must either go up 
beside the bishop and become an angel, or 
go down beside the demons and become a 
monster. 

So his wickedness and the bishop’s good- 
ness griped for their final struggle. In his 
excitement he thought he saw the bishop’s 
figure lighted up and transfigured before 
him. Falling upon his knees, he saw that 
face growing brighter and brighter, while 
he grew less and less and faded away. 
At last only the bishop remained, and his 
smile of approval filled Jean’s heart with 
strange happiness. For a long time he 
remained upon his knees weeping, with 
more of emotion than a woman and more 
of terror than a child. As he wept the 
light in his brain grew more brilliant. In 
that light his first sin, his brutalization, 
his theft of the silver, his hatreds, his pur- 
poses of vengeance, seemed monstrous 
things, and thrust into the white light of the 
bishop’s presence they were utterly con- 
sumed away. At last he rose and made his 


140 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 
way backward toward the bishop’s house. 
About an hour before daybreak, when the 
stage-coach for Paris passed through the 
village, the driver saw a man kneeling on 
the pavement in the attitude of prayer, with 
face turned toward the bishop’s door. It 
is Saul, who saw a great light on the way 
to Damascus. It is David crying, ‘‘Create 
a clean heart in me, O God.’’ It is Peter 
repenting bitterly of hissin. It is the beau- 
tiful girl weeping at the feet of Jesus. It 
is Christ saying, ‘‘Ye may be born again 
and become as a little child.’’ 

It is a proverb that fact is stranger than 
fiction. Since the history of modern com- 
merce includes the story of a wealthy manu- 
facturer who spent those years included be- 
tween twenty and forty within the prison 
walls, but who in later life was renowned as 
a noble inventor, philanthropist, and re- 
former, it seems easy to believe that this new 
era for Jean Valjean’s heart, meant also a new 
era for his intellect. Be the reasons what 
they may, goodness is medicinal. Peace 
with one’s self and one’s God lends the soul 
wings. If remorse poisons the intellect, 
the noble impulses fertilize and invigorate the 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


mind. Sin is sand in the soul’s wheels, but 
righteousness is frictionless living. When 
Jean Valjean rose from the pavement before 
the bishop’s house, he went forth having two 
thoughts—to ‘‘hide his name and sanctify 
his life, to escape from man and return to 
God.’’ And not once did he waver from 
his determination to make himself all that 
the bishop wished him to be. From the 
hour when he began life under the new name 
events conspired to help him. One day he 
chanced upon a method of making jet from 
gum lac and turpentine. The change was 
a revolution. In three years he built two 
factories; in five years he had a large sum 
in the bank; in eight years he was known 
as a philanthropist who had built a hospital 
for his sick workmen, and founded an in- 
dustrial school for sick children. He became 
the almoner of bounty for the widow and the 
fatherless, made his village in size a little 
city, and what was better still, made it a 
veritable hive of industry. 

But after eight years, just in the happiest, 
brightest hour of his new life, there came 
a moment that was big with peril. One 
morning he heard that an old man had been 

142 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


arrested ina neighboring village. It seemed 
that this stranger had stolen a bough of 
apples. On bringing him to the station, an 
official recognized him as a former convict, 
one Jean Valjean, who was wanted for steal- 
ing a coin from a peasant boy. If the rest 
of the day the mayor was ‘‘tranquil without, 
within there raged a hurricane.’’ He saw 
his place at the galleys vacant and this 
stranger taking it. Fate seemed to have 
found the mayora substitute. For years he 
had longed and prayed for one thing—se- 
curity. And now that Javert had this 
Jean Valjean in his clutches, the mayor 
might have rest and peace. Once the old 
man was convicted under his name, Jean 
Valjean was dead. In that hour of tempta- 
tion ‘‘God heaved the soul like an ocean.’’ 
Suddenly the very thought of allowing that 
innocent man to be condemned in his stead 
stood forth a low and hideous crime. Not 
to confess himself as Jean Valjean was to 
thrust this stranger into the galleys and to 
assassinate his life. While the tempest raged 
in his brain, the figure of the bishop rose be- 
fore him, and a voice whispered: ‘‘If the 
bishop were here he would have you go to 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Arras and deliver the false Jean Valjean and 
denounce the true one.’’ Yet when his. 
resolve to confess his identity was made, 
the temptation began afresh. To surrender 
himself was to give up his factory, and de- 
sert his poor villagers, who depended upon 
his industry. He remembered that it was 
his skill that had lighted the fires in the factory 
and placed the meat in the pot. Also when 
industry had driven out poverty, the men- 
dicancy, vice, and crime had passed also. 
Suddenly something whispered, ‘‘ Events 
have decided.’’ Then he arose, and un- 
locked the secret cabinet. He took the 
silver candlesticks, his old knapsack and 
stick, and hurling all into the fire, destroyed 
the last thing that connected him with 
Jean Valjean, and left the stranger to his 
fate. Suddenly some one seemed to pro- 
nounce his name in a whisper that fell from 
above. Then terror overtook him. His 
hair stood erect. The perspiration beaded 
his forehead. He heard a sound of de- 
moniac laughter ringing through the cham- 
bers of his heart, as if demons were laugh- 
ing at the conquest of man’s soul. Should 
he remain in that paradise named the 


144 


Victor Hugo's “Les Miuserables”’ 


mayor’s house, and by remaining become a 
demon, or should he go back to that hell, 
the galleys, that he might be an angel there? 
And so he writhed in his agony until at last, 
with blood upon his lips, he knelt and 
breathed this prayer: ‘‘Not my will but 
Thine be done.’’ Staggering within and 
without, he received the cup of pain, as 
eighteen hundred years before ‘‘that mys- 
terious being in whom all the sanctities and 
suffering were united,met His Gethsemane.’’ 

Literature holds no more thrilling chapter 
than the story of the mayor entering the 
dock to assume the convict’s garb. For the 
very next day M. Madeleine ascended the 
bench beside the judge, and bade the jury 
acquit the prisoner. When the magistrate 
thought him crazed with trouble, and won- 
dered, doubting, Mayor Madeleine called 
the names of the two convicts who had been 
brought from the prison to identify the old 
man. He told one that he had two let- 
ters burned upon his right shoulder; he told 
the other that in the hollow of his left arm 
was a date made in blue letters with burnt 
gunpowder. When the soldiers found these 
marks, and the men knew that the mayor 


145 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


was indeed Jean Valjean, the judge and the 
people felt a great light shining in the room, 
and were ‘‘dazzled in their hearts.’’ Divine 
and majestic indeed the man who could de- 
nounce himself lest another. be condemned 
in his place. Hath God transformed a con- 
vict into a savior? ‘‘Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his 
life,’’ not ‘‘for his friends,’’ but for his 
enemies. But to the audience full of tears 
and pity Jean Valjean said: ‘‘You consider 
me worthy of pity. Great God! When I 
think of what I was on the point of doing 
I consider myself worthy of envy.’’ And 
so, obedient to the heavenly vision, Jean 
turned again toward the Inferno, above 
whose door these words were written, 
‘*Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”’ 
Then began a new series of struggles, 
more thrilling than Bunyan’s story of Chris- 
tian’s fight with Apollyon. Condemned 
afresh, Jean escapes from his prison. Hav- 
ing saved himself, he remembers the dying 
charge of Fantine, and rescues little Cosette 
from the beast that was misusing her. Put- 
ting the child in a school, he hid himself 
near a convent, and out of his apparent 
146 


Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” 


poverty became the almoner of bounty to 
the weak and poor. And as the years went 
on, he who had never known the love of 
mother or sweetheart or wife, poured the 
vast treasures of his love about the orphan 
child that he had made to be his daughter. 
In love’s sweet atmosphere his very life did 
blossom. Ever ministering to God’s poor, 
Jean’s life was full of sweetness and happi- 
ness. But when ten years had passed, 
events startled him. He beheld his tall 
and beautiful daughter possessed of dreams 
of love and home. Grievous indeed was 
the shock. Should Cosette leave him, for 
fear of discovery he could never enter her 
home. Her going meant the snuffing out 
of the candle of his happiness. Henceforth 
his days must be darkness. He who could 
thrust a hot iron into his hand and endure 
the burning flesh without flinching felt his 
soul passing into the crucible. At the 
moment when the temptation was fiercest, 
he learned that his daughter’s lover was in 
a position of extreme peril, and that unless 
he hastened forth for rescue the youth must 
perish, leaving him in peace with the one 
whom he loved. In that hour the voice of 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


conscience, that he now knew to be the 
voice of Christ, whispered, ‘‘He saved 
others, Himself he cannot save.’’ So he 
went forth again into the darkness and the 
storm. One day, at the risk of his own 
life, he saved the life of Marius, and gave 
his daughter into her lover’s arms. He 
who had redeemed others out of death to 
life, now became a martyr and mounted his 
scaffold. . 

Then events moved swiftly on toward 
the end of the piteous tragedy. One day 
he saw his daughter cross the threshold 
of a beauteous home, and when the door 
closed he stood in the darkness without, and 
knew that he was in the night and cold for- 
evermore. One _ sacrifice remained. He 
could live meanly, in poverty. His daughter 
needed wealth and a dowry. So Jean Val- 
jean emptied his entire fortune into his 
daughter’s hands, saying that he had held 
it in trust against her marriage day. When 
Marius, not knowing that Jean was the 
Mayor Madeleine, suspected him of having 
slain the manufacturer and_ stolen his 
wealth, Valjean hid himself in a garret ina 
distant part of the city, and denied himself 


! 


148 


Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miserables” 


the feast of beholding his daughter’s face. 
But God is just. At last every wrong is 
righted. The day came when son and 
daughter knew that, being rich, Jean Val- 
jean had made himself poor that they might 
have home and happiness. Marius knew 
that he had given treachery, suspicion, and 
ingratitude to the man who had saved his 
life. Cosette knew that having neither 
name nor home nor friends, that one whom 
she had neglected had lent her patrician 
place and luxury and happiness. Javert 
knew that he had been a wolf joining the 
pack to chase down a noble stag. 

Realizing that this man was possessed of 
every virtue; that his was the heroism of 
Savonarola to accept flame; his the strength 
of Socrates to receive the poison cup; his 
the fortitude of Paul to endure the whips 
and scourge of ‘‘outrageous fortune,’’ this 
son and daughter hastened forth to find 
his garret. Falling on their knees beside 
the dying man, they besought his for- 
giveness and confessed their selfishness 
and shameful ingratitude. In the hour 
of death the hero, worn with suffering 
and scarred with many wounds received 

149 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


in noble battle, laid his hands upon their 
heads and said: ‘‘My children, remember 
God is above. Heseesall. He knows all 
He does, amid His great stars. Remember 
God is love.’’ Pointing to the crucifix, he 
whispered, ‘‘There is the Great Martyr.’’ 
Then silence fell upon the weeping group. 
While their hot tears fell upon his hand, 
they looked up and found Jean Valjean 
looking into the open heavens, with a great, 
sweet smile upon his face. ‘*My children, 
I can no longer see very clearly. I had 
several things to say to you, but no matter. 
Think of mea little. I know not what is 
the matter with me, but J see ight.’’ Then 
the long silence startled the weeping son 
and daughter. The night was starless and 
intensely dark; doubtless some angel was 
standing in the gloom, with outstretched 
hands, waiting for the soul. God and His 
angels had conquered in the long battle for 
the city of man’s soul. 


150 


VI 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”—An 
Outlook upon the Soul’s Epochs and 
Teachers 


But when we take the King and his people as 
actual men and women, when we throw ourselves 
into the story and let it carry us along, then we under- 
stand that it is a parable; that is to say, it “throws 
beside” itself an image, a reflection, of something 
spiritual, just as a man walking in the sunlight is fol- 
lowed by his shadow. It is a tale of human life, and 
therefore, being told with a purpose, it 


Shadows sense at war with soul. 


Arthur is intended to be a man in whom the spirit 
has already conquered and reigns supreme. It is 
upon this that his kingship rests. His task is to bring 
his realm into harmony with himself, to build upa spirit- 
ual and social order upon which his own character, as 
the best and highest, shall be impressed. In other 
words, he works for the uplifting and purification of 
humanity. It is the problem of civilization. His 
great enemies in this task are not outward and visible 
—the heathen—for these he overcomes and expels. 
But the real foes that oppose him to the end are the 
evil passions in the hearts of men and women about 
him. So long as these exist and dominate human 
lives, the dream of a perfected society must remain 
unrealized; and when they get the upper hand, even 
its beginnings will be destroyed. But the conflict is 
not an airy, abstract strife; it lies in the opposition 
between those in whom the sensual principle is reg- 
nant and those in whom the spiritual principle is 
regnant, and in the inward struggle of the noble heart 
against evil, and of the sinful heart against the good. 
—The Poetry of Tennyson, pp. 177, 178. 


152 


VI 


TENNYSON’S ‘‘IDYLLS OF THE KING—’’AN 
OUTLOOK UPON THE SOUL’S EPOCHS 
AND TEACHERS 


The year 1809 may well be called annus 
mirabilis for the English-speaking people. 
That year gave birth to four of the greatest 
men of the century: Lincoln the emanci- 
pator, Darwin the scientist, Gladstone 
the statesman, and Tennyson the poet. 
The martyred president gave a new liberty 
to slaves, the English scientist stands for a 
new principle in philosophy, the great states- 
man for a new idea in politics, while the 
poet led our generation from doubt back to 
faith. If the influence of president, prime 
minister, and philosopher has been more 
dramatic and imposing, that of the poet 
has been not less powerful and permanent. 
If Lincoln destroyed bondage for slaves, 
Tennyson lent meaning to the new liberty. 
If Gladstone gave the suffrage to classes 
hitherto disfranchised, the poet lent men 

153 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the manhood that justified the suffrage. If 
Darwin gave a new method to the intellect, 
Tennyson lent new treasure to the heart 
and conscience. Passing by the soldier, 
the philosopher, and the king, God hath 
given the poet in every age the first place 
in the affections of the people. That which 
theologians cannot do, the poets easily 
accomplish. From David’s far-off era 
down to the time of Browning and Tenny- 
son, God hath breathed into poems and 
songs the revelation of His providence and 
_ His love. 

'  Turretin stands for a full hundred men 
- famed as philosophers and theologians, but 
men have quite forgotten their dogmatik. 
Bunyan was an untaught tinker, who wrote 
a dream of the pilgrim’s progress heaven- 
ward, yet his poetic fire still burns and his 
pilgrim ‘‘holds on his way as strong and 
fresh as ever.’’ ‘‘Not until we know why 
the rose is sweet, the dewdrop pure, or the 
rainbow beautiful,’’ said Curtis, ‘‘will we 
know why the poet is the best benefactor 
of society; but certain it is that he is the 
divinely ordained teacher, harmonizer, and 
consoler.’’ To our doubting and bewil- 


154 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


dered generation Tennyson seems like some 
glorious Hebrew sage or seer returned to 
earth to lead men into paths of light and 
peace. Unfortunately for his time, Shelley 
led a blind revolt from all forms of belief. 
Arthur Hugh Clough followed, but he stood 
hesitant midway between doubt and faith, 
and soon lost his leadership. Becoming pes- 
simistic, Matthew Arnold struck the note 
of ‘‘eternal sadness.’’ But Tennyson 
bravely faced the specters of the mind. He 
fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
and after long groping in the darkness 
emerged into a blaze of light. ‘‘At last he 
beat his music out,’’ and sang the deep, 
wide love of God, the deathless destiny of 
man, the radiant beauty and perfection of 
Christ as the soul’s savior. His ‘‘In 
Memoriam’’ is the most important religious 
poem of the century. His songs called 
‘‘Doubt and Prayer,’’ ‘‘God and His Uni- 
verse,’ ‘“‘The Silent Voices,’’ ‘‘Crossing 
the Bar,’’ were his last will and testament 
to the world. Of Tennyson it may be said, 
as it was of Cromwell, ‘‘He was a strong 
man in the dark perils of war, and in the 
high places of the field hope shone in him 
155 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


like a pillar of fire when it had gone out in 
others.’’ 

For our literary critics it is not enough to 
mention Tennyson as the most represen- 
tative poet of the Victorian era, ‘“The God- 
gifted organ voice of England who hath 
written lyrics which must charm all who 
love, epics which must move all who act, 
songs that must cheer all who suffer, poems 
which must fascinate all who think.’’ Great 
as he was as a poet, Tennyson was greater 
still asa man and a Christian. What leader 
has made so profound an impression upon 
his fellows or won such tribute of praise 
from the great men of his time! One day 
grim Thomas Carlyle met Tennyson and 
went away to write of him: ‘‘One of the 
finest men in the world. A great shock of 
rough, dusky-dark hair; bright, laughing 
hazel eyes; massive, aquiline face, most 
massive, yet most delicate; sallow brown 
complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes 
cynically loose, free and easy; smokes in- 
finite tobacco. His voice is musically 
metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing 
wail and all that might lie between.’’ 

No man of his era was so swift in piercing 

156 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


through disguises as Thackeray, yet he 
called Tennyson ‘‘one of the wisest of men.’’ 
Gladstone had a great conception of the 
poet asa philosopher. ‘‘I look upon him 
in his words and works with reverence. The 
sage of Chelsea was a genius small in com- 
parison with Tennyson.’’ Lord Shelburne 
called him ‘‘the foremost man of his genera- 
tion. He realized to me more than any one 
else whom I have known the heroic idea.’’ 
Upon the occasion of his last illness, Ten- 
nyson looked up into the face of one who 
was standing by him and said, ‘‘I should 
be sorely afraid to live my life without God’s 
presence, but to feel that He is by my side 
now, just as much as you are, that is the 
very joy of my heart.’’ But he who went 
toward death with the faith of God strength- 
ening his heart went through life with the 
light of God shining upon his face. Recall- 
ing a week in the poet’s home, a gifted 
friend who knew him best wrote, ‘‘ Talking 
with Alfred Tennyson seemed to lift me out 
of the earth—earthy. It was like what a 
retreat is to the religious.’’ For precious 
as are his poems, Tennyson’s character and 
career are treasures beyond all the achieve- 


157 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ments of his splendid intellect. Like his 
own King Arthur, he wore ‘‘the white 
flower of a blameless life.’’ Like Milton he 
daily pledged himself to conscience and his 
God, ‘“‘believing that he who would write 
well in laudable things ought himself to be 
a true poem,’’ and therefore hoped ‘‘to 
leave something so written that men should 
not willingly let it die.’’ 

In his memoirs of the poet laureate, Hal- 
lam Tennyson tells us that his father left 
his last religious poem as a final message to 
the world,“‘summing up the faith in which 
he had lived.’’ Fascinating indeed the 
story how Tennyson moved from doubt to 
belief. It happened that the young poet 
entered the university at a moment when 
doubt was becoming a fad and faith a form 
of folly. The era of his manhood was by 
way of preéminence the era of skepticism. 
Carrying their principle to a rash extreme, 
some evolutionists rose up to say that the 
brain secretes thought, as the liver secretes 
bile. These writers also explained the 
optimism of one philosopher and the ‘pes- 
simism of another by the shifting of the 
brain molecules. They accounted for the 

158 


Tennyson’s “‘Idylls of the King” 


supreme enthusiasm and victory of Socrates 
and Savonarola by the pressure of gases 
upon the arteries of the brain. The magi- 
cian in the ‘‘Arabian Nights’’ waved his 
wand above an empty jug, and from the 
mouth thereof evoked an orange seed that 
swelled, waxed into a tree, put forth its 
buds, ripened the golden fruit, while an- 
other wave of the wand caused the tree to 
retreat into seed and jug—and all this mar- 
vel, too, in a moment of time. But this 
wonder tale seems as nothing compared to 
the feats that the philosopher could pro- 
duce with that magician named ‘‘matter.’’ 
One molecule and a little moisture—these 
were sufficient to account for an ‘‘Iliad,’’ a 
emncipia,” a St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 
that era of sneers and paralyzing doubts, full 
many a gifted boy in England’s university 
made shipwreck of his faithh Even Arthur 
Hugh Clough, with his rare intellect and 
deep religious nature, was bewildered, and 
became, as Thomas Arnold said, ‘‘the Ham- 
let of the nineteenth century.’’ In suchan 
atmosphere Tennyson passed his youth and 
maturity. Hewasa brave doubter, and was 
familiar with every attack that could be made 
159 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


upon Christ and Christianity. Becoming 
increasingly interested in nature and science, 
he fronted every form of materialism and 
agnosticism with every ideal substitute for 
God. Among his closest friends were 
Huxley and Tyndall, and by years of 
study he became almost a specialist in the 
principles of physics and biology. Later, 
Professor Norman Lockyer tells us he 
turned to astronomy and saturated his mind 
with the facts of that fascinating science. 
In saying to Charles Darwin, ‘‘Your theory 
of evolution does not make against Chris- 
tianity,’’ to which Darwin answered, ‘‘Cer- 
tainly not,’’ Tennyson does but express the 
conclusion to which he himself had arrived 
after long investigation. 


He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind. 

He faced the specters of the mind } 
And laid them; thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith than was his own. 


Of God he said: ‘‘Take away belief in 
the self-conscious personality of God and 
you take away the backbone of the world. 
I should infinitely rather feel myself the 
most miserable wretch on the face of the 

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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


earth, with a God above, than the highest 
type of man standing alone. My most pas- 
sionate desire is for a clearer and fuller vision 
of God.’’ Not less clear were his convictions 
about Christ. ‘‘Christianity, without the 
central figure of the Son of Man, becomes 
cold. Iam amazed at the splendor of Christ’s 
purity and holiness and at His infinite 
beauty.’’ If he disliked discussion as to 
the nature of Christ, because ‘‘none know- 
eth the Son but the Father,’’ he affirmed 
that Christ was ‘‘the Maker, the Lord, the 
Light, the Life indeed.’’ Of prayer he said 
that it was like opening ‘‘a sluice between 
the great ocean and our little channels when 
the sea gathers itself. together and flows in 
at full tide.’’ ‘‘More things are wrought 
by prayer than this world dreams of— 


“ For what are men better than sheep or goats, 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 

Both for themselves and those who call them friends? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.” 


In no great author has the faith of immor- 
tality been more deep and strong. ‘‘I can 
hardly understand,’’ said Tennyson, ‘‘how 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


any great imaginative man who has deeply 
lived, suffered, thought, and wrought can 
doubt of the soul’s continuous progress in 
after life.’’ For one by one Tennyson con- 
quered his doubts, and at last those faiths 
called God, Christ, prayer, sin, repentance, 
forgiveness, immortality, became for him 
faiths as immovable as the mountains, as 
permanent as the stars that guide the 
mariner homeward. 

From one view-point Tennyson’s ‘‘In 
Memoriam’’ is the most important religious 
poem of the century, but from another 
‘‘The Idylls of the King’’ form a moral 
parable of equal value and importance. 
Because they represent the maturity of his 
genius and the perfection of his art, his 
deepest convictions and his highest wis- 
dom, the ‘‘Idylls’’ would seem to form the 
poem upon which his fame must ultimately 
rest. The works of Tennyson include more 
than three hundred quotations from the 
Bible, and are pervaded with a spirit so 
deeply devout that men have come to feel 
that he is essentially our religious poet, and 
that it isin the realm of religious thought 
that his genius has found its highest ex- 


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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


pression. If the ‘‘Paradise Lost’’ looks 
backward and shows how one sin sent one 
man into the wilderness; if the ‘‘Divine 
Comedy’’ looks forward and shows how sins 
may be punished and purged away, “‘The 
Idylls of the King’’ form a study of the 
present and offer an outlook upon the great 
epochs and teachers of the soul. 
Interpreting his own poem, Tennyson 
says: ‘‘Birth is a mystery and death is a 
mystery, and midway between lies the table- 
land of life with its struggles and perplexi- 
ties.’’ For David, man comes made in 
God’s image; for Wordsworth, man comes 
‘*trailing clouds of glory’’; for Tennyson, 
‘‘man comes from the great deep, to the 
great deep he goes.’’ Arthur stands out as 
a mystic incarnation, a Christ-man, pure, 
noble, unerring. He is the perfect flower 
of purity and chivalry. He wars against 
Lancelot as the spirit against the flesh. 
The fall of his Round Table is the fall of 
the city of man’s soul. The tragedy of 
King Arthur’s career is that man struggles 
for the highest things for himself and others, 
only to find his work undone through the 
weakness and folly of his followers. Recall- 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ing the pledges that Christ asks from His 
disciples, Tennyson represents the knights 
of the Round Table as laying their hands in 
King Arthur’s while they swear: 

To reverence their conscience as their king, 

To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 

To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 

To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 

To honor his own words as if his God’s, 

To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 

To worship her by years of noble deeds, 

Not only to keep down the base in man, 

But teach high thought and amiable words 

And courtliness and the desire of fame 

And love of truth and all that makes a man. 

And this mystic king, half-human, half- 
divine, hath such purity that when his 
knights lay hands in his, into their faces 
comes ‘‘a momentary likeness of the king.’’ 
For Arthur stands for man’s soul, made in 
the image of God and clothed with power 
to redeem and save its fellows. 

In his ‘‘Gareth and Lynette’’ Tennyson 
tells us man’s growth begins with struggle, 
testing, and discipline, and that character is 
not so much protected innocence as prac- 
ticed virtue. Gareth is a youth, nobly 
born, and the very incarnation of ambition, 

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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


honor, purity, and aspiration. To this 
boy, living in his mother’s castle, surrounded 
by servants who fetch and carry for him, 
comes the vision of a fair life he has never 
led, and forth he goes, preferring to be van- 
quished in the right to being victorious in 
the wrong. Refused a commission as knight 
by reason of his youth, he becomes a scul- 
lion in Arthur's kitchen if only he may be 
near to this glorious king. When Lynette, 
fleeing from her enemies, seeks refuge in 
Arthur’s castle, Gareth undertakes the dan- 
gerous task of freeing her land from enemies. 
Going forth without fear, the boy is uncon- 
querable, because he knows not when he 
has been conquered. Fighting against four 
knights, he unhorses all. Falling into an 
ambush, he escapes unscathed. When the 
night fell, and he was worn with the heat and 
burden of the day, Gareth is again victori- 
ous, like one who, having slain the sins of 
his youth and his maturity, slays also the 
sins of his old age. For, slowly rising on 
stepping-stones of his dead self, Gareth 
climbs to higher things. If, conscious of 
his kingly birth, he suffers because Lynette 
counts him a scullion and treats him with 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


contempt, finally his bravery dissolves her 
scorn, compels her admiration, and wins her 
love. At last he rides forth against the 
knight of the Black Armor named Death. 
When Death’s helmet is cloven by Gareth, 
forth leaped the bright face of a blooming 
boy, ‘‘fresh as a new-born flower,’’ and 
Gareth, conquering Death, wins an immortal 
youth. What would Tennyson have us 
understand from this idyll of Gareth? It is 
Plato saying, “‘“Temptation is the first 
teacher.’’ It is Emerson saying, ‘‘The 
youth who surrenders himself to a great 
ideal himself becomes great.’’ It is Stop- 
ford Brooke saying, ‘‘The soul that laughs 
and loves and rides for the right has all the 
world at his feet.’’ It is Ruskin saying, 
‘“To be heroic is happiness; to bear all 
bravely and righteously in the dazzling sun- 
shine of the morning; not to forget God, 
in whom you trust, when He gives you 
most; not to forget those who trust you 
when they seem to need you least—this is 
the difficult fortitude.’’ It is Sir Galahad 
himself, ‘‘whose strength is the strength of 
ten, because his heart is pure.’’ It is God 
making invincible the arm of the young 
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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”’ 


knight errant, who will lose his life to save 
his ideals and save his fellows. 

In the Geraint and Enid there is a rift in 
the lute that will make the music dumb. 
In this idyll we see how one sin can mar the 
soul, making the days bitterness and the 
nights anguish. Like Saul, Geraint was a 
goodly youth. Like David, he vanquished 
an enemy in an unequal combat. Like 
Othello, he met his wife’s loyalty and de- 
votion with suspicion and jealous exaction. 
Doubting the queen’s honor, he who has 
brought Enid to her court drags her forth 
into the wilderness. Waking one morn, he 
finds his wife weeping, and concludes that 
she is false. If jealousy has made Geraint’s 
lips dumb, love makes Enid unwilling to 
defend herself. Thinking only of himself, 
the king rides forth into the forest, compel- 
ling Enid to go on before, so that she is the 
first to encounter danger. Although for- 
bidden to speak to her lord, she braves his 
anger to warn him of enemies lying in am- 
bush. Left alone with rude brigands, her 
purity and her blazing eyes hold the bandits 
at bay. In an hour when she believed her 
husband dead, her devotion and courage 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


rose to a supreme height. She stands forth 
like an angel of loveliness, clothed with 
devotion, patience, and purity. At last her 
beautiful spirit shames Geraint’s doubt, dis- 
solves his jealousy, recovers him to the 
sanity of trust and love. And when the sin 
is put away, the cloud passes from the sky. 

And never yet, since high in paradise 

O’er the four rivers the first roses blew, 

Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind, 

Than lived through her who in that perilous hour 

Put hand to hand beneath her husband’s heart 

And felt him hers again; she did not weep, 

But o’er her meek eyes came a happy mist 


Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain. 


Then for Arthur’s court the sin that at 
first had been so small became a contagion 
that polluted all the air. Even those who 
stood upon the outermost circle of Lance- 
lot’s life felt the shadow of his black deed. 
One youth of the Round Table was there, 
named Balin. In childhood he learned 
ungovernable anger from his father. In 
manhood oft his anger raged like an inner 
demon. But Arthur was patient toward the 
young knight, who had his repentant moods, 
and slowly taught Balin courtesy and gentle- 

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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


ness. Two ideals the young knight cher- 
ished. He looked to Lancelot as unto 
earth’s bravest knight. He looked toward 
Guinevere as toward earth’s noblest lady. 
What a shock was his when first he learned 
of the queen’s falsity and the knight’s faith- 
lessness! In that moment perished Balin’s 
faith in every fotm of good. Thenceforth 
his hand was against every man. One day, 
watring with a stranger, he turned his 
weapons against his own brother, and slay- 
ing him, received his mortal wound. So 
the death of the two brave knights lay at 
the door of these guilty ones who had 
wrecked the faith of a youth bravely strug- 
gling upward. Having sent forth a shower 
of sparks, the great engine speeds on, but 
the spark falling into the grass, where it 
kindles a conflagration, is one with the 
flame in the engine that now hath journeyed 
afar. And man is responsible for his un- 
conscious influence, that is remote and from 
which he hath journeyed afar, not less than 
for the deeds just at hand. 

In the Merlin and Vivien, sins that once 
were secret become bold and impudent. 
Vivien is the very queen of wickedness. 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Ascending her throne, with notes of defi- 
ance she publishes the sin of the guilty 
knight. Beautiful without, she was all 
black within. Creeping through the court, 
she spread the scandal regarding Guinevere. 
She laughs at the folly of those knights who 
refused to stretch forth the hand and pluck 
life’s scarlet blossoms.  Delilah-like, she 
cast her spell on Merlin, that Samson of 
intellect, and spoiled him of his strength. 
Spreading more and more, sin soils all, save 
Arthur, Sir Bors, Galahad, Percival, and his 
sister. Tempted in her hours of luxury and 
leisure, the beautiful Ettarre proves false 
to her sworn pledge, and is slain for her 
faithlessness. Wounded by the treachery 
of his bosom friend, maddened by the false- 
hood of one whom he loves as life itself, 
Pelleas rushes into the darkness and the 
storm, and falls on death. But if this noble 
youth is ruined by the perfidy of a wicked 
world, Tristram suffers a deeper hurt. In 
him sin has made the light to be darkness. 
He follows that false fire, the will-o’-the- 
wisp, kindled by passion. Brutalized by 
wickedness and sodden in sin, his delicacy 
at last dies. With flippant, jaunty air he 


170 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


talks of the freedom of loving where one 
wills, and how affection fails when beauty 
fails. Then, overtaken red-handed in his 
sins, the avenger smites him unto death. 
For what man sows, that he reaps. 

And when sin and selfishness have 
wrought havoc in the soul, love comes in 
to bless when pure, to blight when unholy. 
What fire is to an opal, that love is to 
man’s life. Wisdom can inform man, but 
love alone can mellow and mature him. 
Therefore great authors make the hero’s 
supremacy to begin with the beginning of 
love. Laura lends purity to Petrarch. 
Beatrice lends light to Dante. Highland 
-Mary lends musicto Burns. Elizabeth Bar- 
rett lends maturity to Robert Browning. 
Men go through years without fulfilling the 
growth and happiness of aday. Then sud- 
denly the beloved one stands forth, and lo! 
the horizons take wings and flee away, new 
worlds swing solemnly into sight ; love smites 
‘‘the chords of self, that, trembling into 
music, pass from sight.’’ Then the sacrifice 
becomes a joy, service is a sacrament, devo- 
tion is delight.. But love is a flame that 
must be fed by answering love, and, met 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


with dishonor, the loving heart doth 
break. 

The Maid of Astolat is the very lily 
of womanhood. The queen is a spiced 
rose of rich perfumes and opulent petals. 
When the wounded knight came to her 
father’s castle, Elaine served, sacrificed, 
revered, worshiped, loved in a sweet aban- 
don of trust. And when Lancelot, healed 
by her medicines, kissed her, offered friend- 
ship, and dropped dark hints of his sad 
story, earth’s rude winds and harsh wicked- 
ness broke Elaine’s pure, innocent spirit. 
Midway between this daughter of love and 
purity and this queen whose beauty had 
rich scarlet and gold and black mingled with 
its whiteness, stood Lancelot, who might 
have been the noblest of all the knights, 
whose tragedy it is that he would fain be 
loyal to his king without being disloyal to 
his queen. Yet fidelity to Arthur bade him 
flee from the court, and fidelity to Guine- 
vere made him false to King Arthur. 

Therefore his honor in this honor stood, 

And his faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

At last sin’s black cloud bursts into full 
_ storm. Lancelot flees. Dumb with pain 


172 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


and stunned with anguish, the knights 
move through the Round Table like white 
ghosts. Then war breaks forth. Burning 
villages light up the plains. Twelve great 
battles, ‘‘sword and fire, red ruin, the break- 
ing up of laws’’—these were the doom of 
Arthur and the fruit of Lancelot’s sin. 
Not until long time had passed was the 
king victorious over his black and ruined 
land. 

Foreseeing the end of his career, one 
question ever fronted this flower of knights: 
Must this separation from Guinevere be 
eternal? Is there no place of recovery for 
this daughter of beauty? Is there no hope 
for the fallen, and no life for the lost? The 
prodigal found welcome in his father’s house, 
and perchance there is recovery for this 
queen, weeping in the monastery, where | 
for months she hath hidden. Bitter! oh 
how bitter her prayers! 


“ Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill; 
Late, late, so late, but we can enter still. 
Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now. 
Have we not heard, the bridegroom is so sweet? 
O, let us in, though late to kiss his feet. 
No, no; too late; ye cannot enter now.” 


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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


That night in the darkness the king sat 
on horseback at the door. 


And near him the sad nuns, with each a light, 
Stood, and he gave them charge about the queen, 
To guard and foster her forevermore. 
She did not see his face, 

- Which then was as an angel’s, but she saw 
The vapor rolling round the king 
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray 
And grayer, till himself became as mist before her 
Moving ghostlike to his doom. 


O, wondrous transformation! Wakening 
from the awful dream of sin, she became a 
horror to herself. In that moment, con- 
scious of great love for the injured king, 
repentance swept over her like the billows 
of the sea. 

Now I see thee, what thou art! 

Thou art the highest and most human, too; 

Not Launcelot, nor another! 

Is there none will tell the king I love him, though 

so late, 

Now—ere he goes to that great battle? None. 


Myself must tell him in that purer life, 
But now it were too daring. 


Sacrificial love hath redeemed the soul 
from sin. Forgiven, she pours her life into 
good deeds, and when years have passed, 
abbess, as once she had been queen, she 

174 


Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King’”’ 


passed to ‘‘where beyond these voices there 
is peace.’’ 

Then sounds the note of final victory. 
Adversity, war, ingratitude, the faithless- 
ness of friends within, the hatred of ene- 
mies without—all these had conspired to 
break the king’s spirit. But, rising triumph- 
ant over every enemy, this flower of kings, 
this knightliest of all brave men, snatches 
faith from faithlessness, keeps love midst 
hate, meets dishonor with forgiveness. 
When the last battle has been fought, and 
friends and enemies lie together upon the 
field, and the Round Table hath fallen, and 
the great king passes toward death, the 
valiant knight Sir Bors breaks down and 
cries: 


Ah, my Lord Arthur! Whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead. 


But, clothed with confidence, majesty, 
and beauty, King Arthur answers that 
death does not end all. 


The old order changes, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfills Himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world; 
By prayer the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 


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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Then passing into the barge, where the 
three queens wait to give him guidance and 
convoy homeward, he who ‘‘came from the 
great deep to the great deep was gone.”’ 
And the knight, fallen on his knees and 
listening, heard sounds— 

As if some fair city were one voice, 
Around a king returning from his wars. 

Though our libraries include the books of 
earth’s most gifted children, yet no great 
book or author better illustrates the princi- 
ple that the great poet must first of all be 
a great man. What Tennyson wrote, he 
first was. As those knights by looking 
into King Arthur’s face borrowed a momen- 
tary likeness of their king, so Tennyson, 
lingering long before his divine Master, bor- 
rowed the likeness of that strong Son of 
God of whom he sang. Grandly beautiful 
the closing hours of his illustrious career! 
The dying poet opened his Shakespeare to 
those tender lines in ‘‘Cymbeline,’’ ‘‘ Hang 
thou like fruit, my soul, till the tree dies.’’ 
Talking to his physician about death, he 
exclaimed, ‘‘What shadows this life is, and 
how men cling to what is, after all, but a 
small part of the great world’s life.’’ 

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Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” 


Knowing of the poet’s interest in the lot of 
lowly men, the physician told him of a vil- 
lager ninety years old who had so pined to 
see his invalid wife that they carried her to 
his bedside. ‘‘Come soon,’’ said the old 
man, and soon after passed away himself. 
The poet murmured, “‘True faith,’’ and 
then himself sank into death’s sleep. Strik- 
ing indeed the son’s account of that dying 
scene: ‘‘OQn the bed a figure of breathing 
marble, flooded and bathed in the light of 
the full moon streaming through the oriel 
window; the moonlight, the majestic figure 
as he lay there, drawing thicker breath, 
irresistibly brought to our minds his own 
‘Passing of Arthur.’ And when the poet 
breathed his last, the old pastor, with raised 
hands, said, ‘Truly, Lord Tennyson, God 
hath taken you, who made you a prince of 


a3 9 


men. 


177 





Vil 


A Study of Browning’s “Saul” — The 
Tragedy of the Ten-Talent Men and 
their Recovery 


“To make such a soul, 

Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering 
the whole? 

And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears 
attest) 

These good things being given, to go on, and give 
one more, the best? 

Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain 
at the height 

This perfection, — succeed with life’s dayspring, 
death’s minute of night? 

Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the 
mistake, 

Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,—and bid 
him awake 

From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find 
himself set 

Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new 
harmony yet 

To be run, and continued, and ended—who knows? 
—or endure! 

The man taught enough, by life’s dream, of the rest 
to make sure; 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified 
bliss, 

And the next world’s reward and repose, by the 
struggles of this.” 

—FPoetical Works of Robert Browning, 
Vol. 111, pp. 120, 121 


180 


VII 


A STUDY OF BROWNING’S ‘‘SAUL’’—THE 
TRAGEDY OF THE TEN-TALENT MEN 
AND THEIR RECOVERY 


For divers reasons the tragedy of Saul 
seems to have fascinated the thought of our 
greatest poets, dramatists, and musicians. 
In pitying admiration, Browning in his 
poem, Stanley in his story, and Chopin in 
his ‘‘Funeral March,’’ have enshrined the 
young king in a mausoleum nobler than one 
built of marble. With a certain mournful 
awe these admirers watch this richly gifted 
youth moving from the summit of greatness 
and power down to his wreckage and final 
ruin. Romantic indeed this adventurous 
and many-colored career that began with 
the shepherd’s cot, passed swiftly to the 
king’s palace, and ended midst the shock 
and thunder of battle! A born king and 
leader among men, he enters the scene 
clothed with that irresistible fascination that 
only the greatest possess. Like Agamem- 

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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


non, he was a king who stood head and 
shoulders above his people. Like Theseus, 
he was a soldier whose sword was in his 
hand by day, whose spear touched his pil- 
low by night. Like Napoleon, with his old 
guard, about young Saul there stood a band 
of noble youths of brave beauty and brawny 
stature. If Lancelot, the leader of King 
Arthur’s knights, lost his leadership through 
treachery to friendship, Saul also discrowned 
himself because he was a king untrue to his 
people, a soldier false to the chivalry of 
arms, a friend who betrayed his friend. 
Crowned king at a time when one swift blow 
would have scattered his foes and united 
his friends, like Hamlet, Saul stood midway 
between his duty and his task, and indeci- 
sion slew him. 

Watching this fascinating human figure, 
with all its splendid gifts, moving swiftly 
from virtue to vice, from the palace to the 
slave market, until his faculties are all 
entangled and confused, oft does the heart 
long, but long in vain, to hear ‘‘the exulting 
and triumphant cry of a strong man coming 
to himself and saying, ‘I will arise.’ ’’ 

Pathetic indeed the story of his decline 

182 


Browning’s “Saul”’ 


and fall. When pride had engendered sel- 
fishness, vanity brought in jealousy. One 
day, after young David had vanquished the 
boasted champion of an invading army, the 
hero’s appearance in the street was greeted 
with the cheers and exultant shouts of the 
multitude. In that hour King Saul feared 
a shepherd boy, and hurling his javelin at 
the youth, met the contempt of all brave 
men. But as the sun disappears when the 
eye is blind, so Saul tampered with his con- 
science, until, for this fallen king, God was 
as though He were not. Like a mariner 
who has lost both sun and compass, bewil- 
dered, Saul turned toward a fortune-teller, 
who pondered the leaves in the bottom of a 
cup, and studied beads and amulets fora 
great man’s guidance. Soon this prince, 
who in his strength had planned the move- 
ments of an army, asked a wandering gypsy 
to determine the path in which his faltering 
feet and shattered intellect should walk. 
Therefore, when the piteous tragedy ended, 
men cried out, ‘‘How are the mighty fal- 
len!’’ Sad, indeed, the ruin of this great 
king! It is some monarch of the forest 
rearing its lofty branches high above the 
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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


far-reaching woods, to be stricken by the 
thunderbolt and left black and scarred and 
ruined. It isthe Parthenon, once crowned 
with matchless beauty, become a mere shell 
of its former self, a heap, and desolation. It 
is some great ship, falling upon cruel rocks 
that gore its sides, while from the yeasty, 
spray-darkened beach there rises the bitter 
cry, ‘‘A wreck, a wreck!’’ When men bore 
the body of the king into the market-place, 
they wept indeed, but not because Saul had 
been overtaken by death. Their hot tears 
fell because they remembered the brave 
boy, once so pure and stainless and true, 
who had made his career to be, not a tri- 
umph, but a tragedy; whose soul at last 
seemed like a palace devastated by fire, 
like a rich harvest field, where the tornado 
had made wide its path of ruin! 

The saddest chapter in literature is the 
history of our ten-talent men. Lingering 
long upon the career of these sons of genius, 
we turn from their dark story with the re- 
flection that often greatness seems to be a 
menace, prosperity a peril, and position a 
test and strain. The scholars of Venice tell 
us that the ‘‘mistress of the sea’’ had her 

184 


Browning’s “Saul” 


vast treasures, not through a few great 
ships, but by a multitude of lesser vessels. 
And ours is a world where the richest car- 
goes of the soul sweep forward in fleets 
made up of those lesser craft named ‘‘two- 
talent people.’’ What great men cannot 
do, average men easily achieve. A few 
elect ones there are who seem like vast 
ships laden with treasures, upon whose 
decks stand the harpers with their harps, 
but at whose helms there are no pilots, and 
oft the galleon has gone down in sight of 
the harbor where the smaller craft have 
peacefully landed their treasures and re- 
ceived welcome and victory. 

In that fascinating study called ‘‘The 
Makers of Modern English’’ the first six 
chapters tell the story of six sons of genius 
and greatness. Strangely enough, the career 
of four of these richly dowered men was a 
tragedy, that of Keats an unfulfilled proph- 
ecy, while that of Scott alone was an un- 
marred triumph. Here is Burns, of whom 
Carlyle asks: ‘‘Will a courser of the sun 
work softly in the harness of a trade horse? 
His hoofs are of fire, his path is in the 
heavens, his task bringing light to all lands. 

185 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Will he lumber over mud roads, dragging 
ale for earthly appetites from door to 
door?’ Yet such a tragedy was the life of 
Burns! Hewas the child of supreme genius. 
After a century his songs are still the richest 
treasure of a nation that has immeasurable 
wealth. Himself a song-intoxicated man, 
with melody he hath bewitched all peoples. 
Striking a new note in English literature, 
this fresh, buoyant, impassioned singer 
enters the scene like an ethereal visitor from 
some celestial realm. Of his amazing intel- 
lect, Walter Scott said Burns had condensed 
the essence of a thousand novels in these 
four lines: 

Had we never loved so blindly, 

Had we never loved so kindly, 


Never met and never parted, 
We had ne’er been broken-hearted. 


What Raphael is in color, what Mozart 
is in music, that Burns is in song. With 
his sweet words ‘‘the mother soothes her 
child, the lover wooes his bride, the soldier 
wins his victory.”’ His biographer says his 
genius was so overmastering that the news 
of Burns’s arrival at the village inn drew 
farmers from their fields, and at midnight 

186 


Browning’s “Saul” 


wakened travelers, who left their beds to 
listen, delighted, until the morn. 

One day this child of poverty and obscu- 
rity left his plow behind, and entering the 
drawing-rooms of Edinburgh, met Scot- 
land’s most gifted scholars, her noblest 
lords and ladies. Mid these scholars, states- 
men, and philosophers, he blazed ‘‘like a 
torch amidst the tapers,’’ showing himself 
wiser than the scholars, wittier than the 
humorists, kinglier than the courtliest. And 
yet, in the very prime of his midmanhood, 
Burns lay down to die, a broken-hearted 
man. He who had sinned much suffered 
much, and being the victim of his own 
folly, he was also the victim of ingratitude 
and misfortune. Bewildered by his debts, 
he seems like an untamed eagle beating 
against bars he cannot break. The last 
time he lifted his pen upon the page it was 
not to give immortal form to some exqui- 
site lyric he had fashioned, but to beg a 
friend in Edinburgh for a loan of ten pounds 
to save him from the terrors of a debtor’s 
prison. At the summit of his fame, 
Walter Scott said that the most precious 
treasure his memory possessed was associ- 

187 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ated with the moment when as a boy he met 
Robert Burns and looked into the poet’s 
eyes, dark and tender, “‘the most glorious 
eyes’’ he had ever seen. But the last time 
that Robert Burns’s eyes glowed they blazed : ‘ 
with anger against a creditor who had come 
to drag the dying man from his couch to 
the prison cell. Possessed by sorrow as — 
with an evil spirit, his dark hair streaked — 
with gray before its time, worn by worries, — 
wasted with fever, imbittered by troubles 
against which he had bravely struggled, but _ 
struggled in vain, like Saul, Burns fell upon 
an untimely death. : 

And so this child of sunshine and sweet 
song, with his flashing wit and abundant 
laughter, died feeling that his sun was to © 
go down mid clouds as black as have ever 
been woven out of the warp and woof of © 
poverty and misfortune. Yet he isnot oneof — 
the prophets whom men have first slain and — 
then builded their sepulcher. Carlylethinks 
Burns received more rather than less of the i 
kindnesses usually bestowed upon great — 
teachers. For ours is a world that pays 
Socrates with a cup of poison, and Christ 
with a cross. We are told, too, that — 

188 4 
















ne and Miss 
Wednesday 
\g rge Vander- 
4 at present 
Paes and 


of No. 1 

; itertain- 

mee Washing- 

ry home, at 

je city to-day. 

Parriman will 
eatre party. 


feat who. have. 


at Montreal 
pivesteraay 


ay acetved from 
Gibraltar, an- 


J Alice Niorton, 
Columbia on 
les hood go 


in give a card 
orty-eighth 


J OTES. 
eve Lord, of 


exer Froth. 


lendid military service.” 
eo BRITISH NAVY 
The Record, speaking of the enlargenient. 


| of the British navy, says:— 


“When the shivs now contemplated and 
under construction shall have been com- 
pleted the British battle fleet. exclusive of 


vessels more than ten years old, will include — 


fifty-eight armorclads of the first class! By 


‘eomparison Great Britain’s naval plans still 
dwarf 


Powers, not- 
3 impetus given to 
in Russia, France and 


those of all the other 
withstanding the recent 
naval construction 
Germany.” 


NATIONAL FOREST PARKS, 


The Press shows the necessity of national 
forest parks, and remarks:— 

‘Tt is encouraging to know that the Minne- 
sota Federation of Women’s Clubs has de- 
cided to take charge of the projeet to estab- 
lish a national forest park in that State and 
will sena representatives to Washington to 
call the attention of Congress to the subject. 
The Minnesota park scheme is projected on 
an extensive scale. The rest of the country 


will watch this effort to establish a national 
forest park in the Northwest, and if carried 
out similar 
where.’ 


THE HERALD CLOCK WILL STRIKE 


schemes wil] spring up else- 


12 0’clock, 12 o'clock. 


1 o’clock, 1 o'clock. 


4 o'clock, 


6 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 


bay and night. 
he midnight, one 0 ’clock A. M., four o’cloc 


A. M. and six o’clock P. M. the group will bo@am™ nea | 


iluminated while striking the RgUE 





rae money, so they set to Beh: gad started 


the machinery of the law to crush him. This 
- boy awoke from the horror of that nightmare 
to find himself in prison, to which he had 
seen condemned for a period of twenty years. 
The old farmer and his wife had never given 
him any religious training, and he seemed 
overwhelmed by circumstances, environment 


and heredity.. Once he heard a chaplain say 


something, and he thought God might for- 
give him if he should fast. So he fasted 
until there was so little blood in his body 
that one of his limbs dried up and had to be 
taken off. The chaplain called on him, and 
told him of the love and fatherhood of God. 


“That changed all. He resolved there and | 


then to be the master instead of the slave of 
circumstances. There came a letter to him, 
It was from that young woman whom he had 
married. She said to him that he was in 
prison to stay for twenty years, and she was 


going to get a divorce. She did get the di- ; 


vorce and married again in a year. And then 
into his prison there drifted the news that 
the old farmer and his wiferhad died and 
that the nephews had succeeded to the es- 
tate. But he bore up and fought on. 


‘He was the leader in the Christian move- | 


ment in the prison, and when at the end of 
his term he came out, having studied books, 
he invented a piece of machinery and made 
a. fortune out of it. That invention is. 
now at the. back of a great industry. The 
man lives 500 miles from the scene of his suf-. 
ferings, and only the Governor of that State, . 
who is his friend, knows his story. If he 


| Ger 










Special Rates for Colored Ad-| 
vertisements on Sunday. 


———$— + 


PARIS, 4 


The following Americans registered yester- 


: r bot | |e ; ity 
Setts, wants to regulate Pullman” Towa 
law at the rate of fifty cénts per hundw 
miles for lower berths and twenty-five cet 
per hundred miles for upper berths. Bm 
Mr. 
much interest in Congress in a questio 
which does not affect Congressmen." 

‘“‘SELF-SACRIFICH.’” 
The Omaha World-Herald remarks:— 

“Judge Taft gives up a $6,000 a year federal 





e 


a. 


at the New YorK HERALD office, No. 49 


wOopéra, Paris:— 


NEW. YX 


- 


AN» 


Judgeship to take a $2 


~ 


pines Commission. Thes 
fices are becoming quite numerous as well as 


,000 job on the Philip- 
se patriotic self-sacri- 





-e F., Mrs. 


fi 
mei cisco, 


x ee 


a 
Mend the 
rtainin 
Prk, ane 
2ame to 
19 ‘Paunce- 
aeeic honor 
mit mem- 
meresent, 


mer ikean, 
emeeeest Miss 
me key. Dr, 
macheon in 


oar: Sat of 
heer be 


Kentucky :-~ 


is 
* | holding out to the death, he can 


quite expensive under this administration.”’ 


‘Philadelphia Editorials on the Topics 


of the Day. 
The Inquirer remarks upon the situation in 


“We have no doubt that the court will 
eventually oust Governor Taylor, for the Goe- 
bel law was adopted for the special purpose 
of making political theft easy. The seating 
of Beckham will be a monstrous crime, and 
yet that crime will be committed under the 
law. As long as the Goebel law remains on 
the statute books Kentucky will be disgraced, 
It should be abolished, and fair minded men 
of Kentucky of all parties should now unite 
to right the terrible wrong that has been 
done.”’ 

FINANCIAL BILL, 

The Public Ledger, referring to the finan- 
cial billin Congress, says the country has de- 
eclared for the gold standard and adds:— 

“Congress will doubtless give to the popu- 
lar verdict the form of law at the earliest 
available opportunity”~The last word has 
been said that need be said in discussing the 
financial issue in Congress, and nothing now 
remains to be done but to take an early vote 
on the measure, It is a piece of constructive 


| legislation of vast s’gn ficance to the busines¢ 


of'the country, and is likely to remain per- 


| manently among the federal] statutes.” » 


CRONJE’S DEFENCE. 
The Times saysi— 
“Cronje’s defence at Paardeberg Drift will 


take its place among the heroic actions of % 
history. 


It is no credit to a commander to 
expose his men to death in a hopeless posi- 


tion merely to avoid the shame of surrender. ie 
But if, ‘by + 


That is desperation, not heroism. 
Keep the 
nemy in check until reinforcements come or 
noperaciog force can get into position ta 
than} f ine tha - = 


hz Ne DO or Ashi 


Fitzgerald may discover there is notmg 









- 


ee o-— — 


“11° gs | ‘should come into this chu et 1d k | 
Dr. Hillis Tells the Story of his business: that is all. Se eiae eons 


knights errant, who has triumphed ever cir-y 


an American Jean Valjean cumstances, over environment, over he- 


| redity.” 

Undaunted by Fate. ie Se 

ue PALMIST DIED ERIEDLQI a 
pita: | 


In his sermon in plymouth Church on FePne 
’ Evasion of Personal Responsibility ir 
pr. Newell Dwight Hillistold @ sto 
of an American Jean Valjean. Dr.. Hillis was 
arguing that not environment, nor neredity, 
nor circumstance of any kind could force a 
man to sin, 
“One day 4 gentleman came into 4 meet- 
ing,’ he said. “‘! knew him as an inventor, as 
3 man of wealth, and he proposed that he 
“walk alongs the way home with me- We went 
together, and then he came into My home to 
ypend the evening. While there he opened a 


hidden pase of his history: He had neither 
‘ather Nor mother that he knew, Was turned 
yut a foundling at + y and at eight ing 1@ 


cons 


years. was adopte hy farmer. fessit 
twenty he occupied ti n of hired man | declay 
upon the f + is, a hired man’s this Cia 
work, but got no pay. fe r and his wife | in PFS 
were childless. The old man 1d him that he | in his 
nad made him -his heir, yied a Belle vas 
young woman who was also emp cover, ™ 
‘arm, and the old folks were delighted. live. 
«while he W: ay with his bride the | he We 
farmer hirea another man. to do the hard jaughe'™ 
work, and when he returned he found him | to prev 
there- The new man was 4 fiery tempered Muck ed 
Southerner, and when the boy one day or- the ol 
dered him about, ged and street. 
him with « j spoke ki 


“ , 


noe 
MF ie 5. . 
A ee eee 


Browning’s “Saul” 


Tasso polished his cantos in a madhouse, 
Cervantes perfected his pages ina prison, 
Roger Bacon wrought out his principles 
in a dungeon, Locke was banished and 
wrote his treatise on the mind while shiv- 
ering in a Dutch garret, and by contrast 
with the lot of other worthies Burns seems 
the child of good fortune. In the last 
analysis the blame is with the poet himself. 
Not want of good fortune without, but want 
of good guidance within, wrecked this 
youth. Save Saul alone, history holds no 
sadder tragedy than that of Burns, who 
sang “‘the short and simple annals of the 
poor,’’ songs that have made this singer’s 
name immortal. 

But if some explain Burns’s excesses and 
sins by his extreme poverty, urging that 
penury gave him “‘no shelter to grow ripe 
and no leisure to grow wise,’’ in Byron we 
have one in whom wealth was united to 
genius, like themtostliest vase holding the 
loveliest flower. Surely, poverty never 
pinched Byron, and certainly his intellect 
made the path bright enough for his young 
feet. Indeed he was the first English 
author to conquer the admiration of the 

189 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Continent. Goethe gave him a place among 
the foremost. France and Italy bestowed 
an admiration hitherto reserved: for Shakes- 
peare alone. Other gifts also were his. 
Men called Byron the handsomest youth of 
his time. His beautiful head, his finely 
chiseled features, his face glowing with feel- 
ing like an alabaster lamp lighted from 
within, his courtly manners, lent him the 
note of distinction, and he had the beauty 
of a Greek god. In language of unrivaled 
force and beauty, he led the revolt of the 
common people against the infamous court 
of George III. Publishing his first volume, 
he woke one morning to find himself 
famous. 

Yet this youth, so brave, so beautiful, | 
dowered with gifts so rich, perished ere his 
race was half run. Ina reckless, pleasure- 
loving age, he drank more, lived faster, and 
was more reckless than any other man. 
When vice had disturbed his happiness, sin 
poisoned his genius. Alienated from Eng- 
land, he went to the Continent, and entered 
upon such escapades as unbridled desires 
alone suggest. Soon Shelley wrote home 
that a violent death was the best thing to 

190 


Browning’s “Saul. 


be desired for Byron. The fever that at 
last consumed his body was fully matched 
by the remorse that preyed upon his mind. 
In his dying hour the worm, the canker, 
and the grief were his alone. Therefore he 
likened himself to a serpent, girt about with 
fire, that turns its poisoned fangs upon itself 
as a means of escaping from approaching 
flames. If, in his early career, England 
would have buried Byron in one of the 
favorite spots of her abbey, when at length 
his career ended in disgrace, she closed her 
great temple against Byron, and his friends 
bore his troubled dust to the little church- 
yard at Hucknall. When young Alfred 
Tennyson heard that Byron was dead, he 
said, ‘‘I thought the world was at an end.’’ 
Mourning for his fallen hero, Tennyson took 
up David’s Jament for Saul: ‘‘ How are the 
mighty fallen! Perished are the weapons of 
the great!’’ 

When we have noted that Poe starved and 
shivered into the tramp’s grave at thirty- 
nine, that Burns found the wolf at his door 
at thirty-seven, that the fiend was gnawing at 
the heartstrings of Byron at thirty-six, that 
at thirty Shelley passed beyond ‘“‘the con- 

1g! 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


tagion of the world’s slow stain,’’ that 
Keats, ‘‘whose name is writ not in water,”’ 
but in adamant, was dead at twenty-five, 
we must not interpret these ill-starred lives 
as meaning that the history of great poets 
represents defeat and tragedy, while the his- 
tory of men great in other departments of 
life represents triumph and victory. If we 
call the roll of the artists, we find that 
Andrea del Sarto had gifts so great as to 
lead many to believe that he was superior 
to Raphael himself. In his early youth he 
painted pictures characterized by such 
beauty and majesty of drawing, such rich- 
ness of color, as to promise a supremacy 
altogether unique. But early in his career 
this youth passed under the influence of a 
beautiful Jezebel, left his aged parents to 
starve, and for gold sold his brush to 
ignoble patrons. When Francis I. advanced 
money for certain pictures, the youth spent 
it in riotous living, making no return to his 
benefactor. Stricken with remorse, he was 
overtaken by a contagious disease. Deserted 
by the woman for whom he had abandoned 
honor, fame, and friends, he perished in the 
solitude of a filthy garret, and at midnight 
192 


Browning’s “Saul’”’ 


was hastily carried forth to a pauper’s 
grave. 

But in philosophy, also, great men have 
had a like career. Here is Bacon, with his 
noble birth, reared in a palace, educated at 
court, and replying, almost as soon as he 
could speak, to the queen, asking how old 
he was, ‘“‘Two years younger than your 
Majesty’s happy reign.’’ He garnered uni- 
versal wisdom. He founded a new system 
of philosophy. He ushered in our era of 
science and invention. But he also added 
the cunning of a traitor to the wisdom of a 
statesman, and the meanness of a slave to 
the grasp of a philosopher. His soul has 
been likened to a marble palace—bright in 
its walls and brave in its battlements, but 
within foul of cellar and noisome of garret. 

Nor are the tragedies less dark in other 
realms. What a career is that of De Quin- 
cey, the essayist. Early in life he fell a 
slave to the opium habit, that shattered his 
nerves, darkened his reason, destroyed his 
happiness and home, and enfeebled his 
will. He who once had been master to 
many pupils, leading on like a pillar of fire 
for brilliancy, became a pillar of cloud, out 

193 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of which leaped but intermittent flashes— 
flashes not of light, but of lightning, that 
served only to deepen the darkness in which 
the great man dwelt. For De Quincey 
ended his career, like Samson, blind and 
grinding corn in the prison of those who 
once had been his servants. 

Pathetic the tragedy of great men in the 
realm of affairs, also. In his class no man 
of his time even approached the ‘“‘Little 
Corsican’’ in sheer weight of intellect. He 
stayed a revolution, conquered kingdoms, 
made a code, leveled the Alps, invented a 
system of weights and measures. He was 
so great that single-handed he might have 
set France forward a half century in the 
march of civilization. But prosperity made 
him proud, power made him cruel, and 
moving swiftly toward ruin, Emerson says 
he became unjust to his generals, false to 
his wife, blind to honor, until he could 
““steal, lie, slander, drown, and poison, as 
his interest demanded.’’ Stricken with 
death upon his lonely island home, he coolly 
falsified dates, facts, and characters to 
heighten his fame. For the great general 
victory became defeat. 

194 


Browning’s “Saul” 


Wisdom, also, hathitstragedy. Scholars, 
from Solomon to Goethe, have gotten wis- 
dom and knowledge, but too often also 
have indulged themselves in sin, until 
their making of books seems a vanity, and 
all their days days of disgrace — whose 
biographers, like Noah’s sons, must needs 
walk backward to hide the hero’s naked- 
ness. And here are the sons of wealth, who 
have used their superior strength and power 
to thrust back from life’s good things those 
who are inferior and weak, and who, going 
toward the throne, have left behind their 
charming modesty; and becoming proud and 
imperious, have ruined happiness and made 
life a tragedy. And here are the daughters 
of beauty, from Cleopatra to ‘‘the Jersey 
Lily,’’ whose gift was loveliness, whose task 
it is, to liff}men up from the abyss and guide 
them from star to star, but who have em- 
broiled men in quarrels, brought anarchy into 
the lives of those who have loved them, whose 
breath is a pestilence, whose affection is a 
flame, who have been tomen not ‘‘the shade 
of a rock ina weary land,’’ but the sharpness 
of a rock to sink goodly ships. Oh, the 
story of greatness is one long, black, pite- 

195 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ous tragedy! Happy, thrice happy, those 
who are the children of one talent or two or 
three, who dwell neither in the arctic zone 
of chill penury nor the heated zone of the 
tropics, but rather in the temperate zone, ~ 
where the average man doth abide, fulfilling 
the world’s work, above whose bier rises no 
mournful lament, ‘‘How are the mighty 
fallen!’’ and ‘‘Perished are the weapons of 
thevoreatlt; 

Difficult indeed the task of explaining the 
wreck and ruin of these sons of greatness. 
In the noblest plea that one man of genius 
has ever made for another, Carlyle reminds 
us that the orbit of a planet is large and 
that of acircus ring small, and that a deflec- 
tion of a few inches from the small ring 
would be greater in proportion to its diameter 
than for the planet to wander thousands of 
miles from its vast orbit. ‘‘Granted,’’ says 
Carlyle of Burns, ‘‘the ship comes into har- 
bor with shroud and tackle damaged; the 
pilot is blameworthy; he has not been all- 
wise or all-powerful, but to know how 
blameworthy tell us first whether his voyage 
has been round the globe or merely for a 
yachting trip across some sequestered lake.’’ 

196 


Browning’s “Saul” 


But Byron’s plea is very bold. He affirms 
that greatness sanctifies whatever it does; 
that genius is exempt from moral laws that 
are binding upon dull people, that his 
superior gifts lend the possessor a chartered 
right to gratify his desires and passions in 
whatsoever garden of pleasure. This plea 
would make Burns blameless for clothing 
drinking songs with matchless beauty. It 
frees Del Sarto from condemnation for hang- 
ing immortal wreaths upon the forehead of 
Satanic creatures, and discharges the French 
school from responsibility for clothing the 
worst sentiments in the loveliest language. 
But in moments of sober reflection, thought- 
ful minds will affirm that as men go toward 
greatness they go toward responsibility ; that 
when God gives the youth power and maiden 
beauty, He takes vows from them; that fol- 
lies quite eXcusable in a one-talent man are 
monstrous in the children of ten talents; that 
by virtue of supremacy the children of 
strength and genius are pledged to special 
honor and purity and justice and truth in the | 
inner parts. All wise men must hold with | 
John Milton that greatness is a pledge to 
goodness. Explaining his vast intellectual 

197 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


achievements, Milton said: ‘‘He who would 
write a heroic poem must first live a heroic 
life. I am not one who has disgraced beauty 
of sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the 
maxims of the free man by the actions of the 
slave, but by the grace of God I have kept 
my life unsullied. I take God to witness 
that in all those places where so many things 
are considered lawful I have lived sound and 
untouched from any profligacy and vice, 
having this thought perpetually with me, 
that though I might escape the eyes of men, 
I certainly could not escape the eyes of 
Godin 

Having confessed the overthrow of the 
sons of greatness, Robert Browning medi- 
tates the soul’s recovery also. The majesty 
of its thoughts, the splendor of its imagery, 
the simplicity and sweetness of its rhythmic 
flow make his ‘‘Saul’’ one of the great- 
est of Browning’s poems. In that hour 
when sin had bewildered the king’s in- 
tellect and melancholy enfeebled his will, 
growing desperate, Saul denied himself food 
and drink and withdrew into his innermost 
tent. When three days and nights had 
come and gone, with no sign of life from 

198 


Browning’s “Saul” 


the royal sufferer, his servants in fright- 
ened whispers talked much upon death. 
They dared not cross the forbidden thresh- 
old. Soon his faithful general grew des- 
perate. Having watched the long night 
through, when morning came he bethought 
himself that perhaps young David might 
seek entrance in the sacred name of 
friendship. For all too much this king 
had lived alone. A little solitude nur- 
tures strength, but continued solitude 
threatens the very center of man’s being. 
Of necessity the mountain peak that rises 
above its fellows must dwell apart, and it is 
the peril of the great that at last they are 
alone, none daring to expose the strong 
man’s peril or lay bare his secret faults. 
Yet for a thousand reasons the great have 
special need of sympathy and friendship. 
Hours there are when the world reels be- 
neath man’s feet, when trouble chokes his 
voice, and then each Saul must lean upon 
some bosom friend. For ours is a world 
where the fireman climbing the ladder to 
certain death is strengthened by the cheers 
of onlookers. 

Entering the battle, the young soldier is 

199 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


less afraid because of his brave compan- 
ions. Oft in moments when sorrow breaks 
the heart one look into the face of a friend 
whose eyes are dim with tears is worth all 
gifts of gold. Cicero says, ‘Friendship can 
make riches splendid.’’ But Friendship 
worketh other miracles. When winter’s frost 
makes great cracks in the asphalt street, 
workmen force a tongue of flame upon the 
injured parts, and soon the warm glow 
unites parts that before were separated. 
And it is given to love’s warm flame to 
repair the grievous injuries that sin hath 
wrought in the soul. In the olden time, 
when the sufferer touched the hem of 
Christ’s garment, electric life leaped from 
Saviour to sufferer. Then one touch of the 
hand, a glance, a kindly deed, the sympa- 
thetic note—medicines these that heal the 
broken heart. Browning would have us 
believe that the recovery of every Saul be- 
gins with these words, ‘‘In my darkest 
hour there came a friend.’’ 

Standing at the door, beyond which lay 
the broken-hearted king, David pondered 
what form of message he should bring. 
. Times there are when silence is a medicine. 


200 


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Browning’s Sani’ 


In other hours speech hath its minis-4 
try. If David feared not his battle with 
Goliath, he trembled exceedingly as he 
began his struggle to recover Saul’s soul. 
Taking his harp in his hand, he breathed a 
prayer that God would teach him the min- 
istry of sweet song. If the other arts can 
inspire and instruct, music can redeem and 
save. As the fine arts go away from God’s 
throne they lose their flexibility and take on 
forms hardand permanent. Architecture is 
the lowest of the fine arts; it is most perma- 
nent. Sculpture is higher, but the statue 
is cold, having form alone. To form paint- 
ing adds color, and breathes warm tints of 
life. Literature is a higher art, using words 
for colors. But‘ music is builded of breath 
alone and dies with the vibrating air. The 
least permanent art, it is also the highest. 
If worship begins with the foundations 
of the cathedral, it ends with the song 
that is a golden chariot upon which the 
soul rides forth to meet its God. On that 
Christmas night the shepherds said that 
Christ was born to sound of angelic music. 
And if the soul enters the earthly scene mid 
melodious notes, the dying man also asks to 
201 


| 


} 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


pass away while some sweet song wafts him 
home to heaven. Richter says ‘‘music re- 
stores childhood.’’ In the hour, therefore, 
when Saul was drear and stark, dumb and 
deaf, David tuned his harp, took off the 
lilies that twined its chords, and sang of 
love and home and heaven, sang of God’s 
mercy that forgives and saves. 

Impressive indeed, that scene when 
David stood before the fallen king, ply- 
ing him by light and darkness, by hope 
and fear, by the memories of the past, 
by the hopes of the future, rebuking Saul, 
fighting him, controlling, and at last con- 
quering him by truths divine. Recalling 
the days when Saul’s heart was young, 
David sang the song with which the shep- 
herd calls his flock, and carried the dark- 
ened king back to well-remembered scenes. 
He sang the harvest song, and brought back 
the days when the youth had led the reapers 
into the fields of golden grain. He re- 
hearsed the events of war, the coming of an 
invading host, the tramp of armed men, 
the hours when Saul, the leader, buckled on 
his armor, the fierce shock of the battle, and 
the moment of final victory. Justifying the 


202 


Browing’s “ Saul”’ 


ways of God to man, he reminded Saul that 
trouble hath its ministry and suffering its 
mercy; that the stroke of the lightning, not 
less than the falling dew, nurtures the 
sheaves of harvest; that the sweetest per- 
fume comes from bruised flowers; that if 
the palm tree dies, its dates will live to sup- 
port men crossing life’s desert, and if old 
age is a winter that strips the trees of 
leaves, the leaves fall only to lend a lovelier 
luster to the boughs of May. Therefore, 
good deeds done, truth sown as seeds, shall 
rise again in new harvests of beauty. And 
having plied Saul by the memories of child- 
hood and youth, by his ambitions and 
victories, His temptations and sufferings, his 
prayers and tears, suddenly David swings 
wide for him the door of immortality, and 
reminds this man, with his sorrow and 
shame and failure, that through God’s good 
mercy the immortal life shall repair the 
defeats of the life that is. An eternal morn 
shall succeed death’s brief night. Saul, 
now a ruin and a failure, shall awake to 
new light and new life and endure. 


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Great Books as Life-Teachers 


By the pain throb triumphantly winning intensified 
bliss 

And the next world’s reward and repose by struggles 
in this. 


And then, because David believes that the 


Acknowledgment of God in Christ, 
Accepted by the reason, solves for thee 
All questions in the world and out of it, 


he points this baffled, wounded, fainting 
king to that mysterious double star shining 
forth in man’s dark night. ‘‘Would I suffer 
for him I love?’’ exclaims Browning. 
‘*Then so will God, so will God.”’ 


O Saul, it shall be 
A face like my face that receives thee, a man like to 
me 
Thou shalt love and be loved by forever! 
A hand like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee, 
See the Christ stand! 


Behold the Friend Divine, who is abroad, 
recovering men from ruin and defeat. 
Therefore hope thou in Christ! His love 
can soften the hardest heart, forgive the 
blackest sin, can redeem the darkest tragedy 
unto triumph and victory. 


204 


Vill 


The Memoirs of Henry Drummond, and 
the Dawn of an Era of Friendship be- 
tween Science and Religion 


& 


205 


In his brief life we saw him pass through two of 
the greatest trials to which character can be exposed. 
We watched him, our fellow-student and not yet 
twenty-three, surprised by a sudden and a fierce 
fame. Crowds of men and women in all the great 
cities of our land hung upon his lips, innumerable 
lives opened their secrets to him, and made him 
aware of his power over them. When his first book 
was published, he, being then about thirty-three, 
found another world at his feet; the great of the land 
thronged him; his social opportunities were bound- 
less; and he was urged by the chief statesman of, our 
time to a political career. This is the kind of trial 
which one has seen wither some of the finest charac- 
ters, and distract others from the simplicity and reso- 
lution of their youth: He passed through it unscathed; 
it neither warped his spirit nor turned him from his 
accepted vocation as a teacher of religion. 

Again, in the end of his life, he was plunged to the 
opposite extreme. For two long years he not only 
suffered weakness and excruciating pain, but what 
must have been more trying to a spirit like his, accus- 
tomed all his manhood to be giving, helping, and lead- 
ing, he became absolutely dependent upon others. 
This also he bore unspoiled, and we who had known 
him from the beginning found him at the end the 
same humble, unselfish, and cheerful friend whom we 
loved when we sat together on the benches at college. 
—The Life of Henry Drummond, pp. 1, 2. 


set 44 ff 


VIII 


THE MEMOIRS OF HENRY DRUMMOND, AND 
THE DAWN OF AN ERA OF FRIENDSHIP 
BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 


Our age has been sadly injured by the 
warfare between theology and science. For 
some cause, reason and faith have assumed 
the attitude of enemies, turning the world 
into a battlefield, and making life one long 
tournament? Fierce and bitter has been 
the strife. Often the very skies have 
seemed to rain pamphlets of attack and de- 
fense. A thousand times the skeptics have 
announced the Waterloo of Christianity and 
preached the funeral sermon of the Bible, 
and a thousand times not Christianity, but 
its enemy, has gone the way to the grave- 
yard. When the scholar reads_ those 
volumes of President White called ‘‘The 
History of the Warfare of Science and 
Theology,’’ he is conscious of the convic- 
tion that if theologians have been strangely 

207 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ignorant of the laws of biology, chemistry, 
and physics, scientists have been equally 
‘ignorant of the laws of self-consciousness, 
, intuition, and spiritual vision. Carlyle and 
Maurice were seers, and Huxley and Tyn- 
dall were scientists, but when a scientist 
fronts a seer, straightway the sword flies 
from its scabbard and conversation becomes 
a tournament. 

When some Darwin drops Carlyle’s 
“Sartor Resartus,’’ he exclaims, ‘‘It is 


all mist!’” When some Carlyle lays aside 
Darwin’s volume, he exclaims, ‘‘It is all 
mud!’’ ‘‘You_ theists cannot think!’’ 


asserts some Spencer. ‘‘You scientists can- 
not aspire or pray!’’ returns some Mar- 
tineau. Professor Huxley had a “‘fine 
frenzy’’ for facts, and in The Fortnightly 
Review made a study of what he called 
‘“The Bedevilment of the Gadarene Swine,”’ 
asserting that the Bible includes many errors 
of science and history, and falls with these 
errors, to which his opponent made answer 
that hundreds of years after Moses made 
his mistake as to the sun moving around 
the earth scientists were still teaching that 
the world rested on an elephant’s back, the 
208 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


elephant on four turtles, the turtles on mid- 
air, and that the history of the blunders of 
scientists through the centuries would bea 
volume ten times as thick as the history of 
the exploded theories in the realm of ethics 
and morals. When President White ended 
his volume on the centuries of warfare be- 
tween scientists and theologians, he might 
have told us a wonder tale—how two ene- 
mies of the olden time were wondrous 
strange, in that one wore a hat so large as 
to hide the sky, while the seven-leagued 
boots of the other were so big that he could 
not see tke earth. Neither science nor 
theology are infallible. Perhaps the mis- 
takes of the one have been fully equalled by 
the mistakes of the other. Limited to the 
realm of the senses, science has its frontier 
lines. But the queen of the sciences also 
has her limitations—severe and exacting. 
Meanwhile, through all the tumult and din 
of the fierce discussion, 

“The little birds sang east, the little birds sang west, 
And I smiled to think God’s greatness 


Flowed around our incompleteness, 
Round our restlessness— His rest.” 


209 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Among the prophets of the new era of 
friendship between science and religion let 
us include the name of Professor Drummond. 
This scientist loved his scalpel and micro- 
scope, but he also loved his mother’s Bible. 
Loving to observe and analyze, he also’ 
loved to hope and pray. Being at once sci- 
entist and Christian, he believed that law 
was love and love was law. ‘‘Whom God 
hath crowned, man may not discrown,”’ 
and now that he hath passed beyond the 
veil we all do see that Professor Drum- 
mond was a prophet of reconciliation and 
hath a place among our great leaders. Tire- 
lessly did the reverent scholar study his 
Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer, and all those 
specialists who have scrutinized the world 
of matter. But he also loved his Plato 
and Paul and Kant, and with them explored 
the realms of mind. He believed indeed 
in clods and paving-stones. He also knew 
that a thought is just as real a thing asa 
‘cannon ball; that an aspiration is a force as 
‘truly as is the bullet. He knew that the 
clod could grow the violet or anemone, and 
he also knew that a thought could nourish 
generous deeds and heroic purposes that will 

210 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


endure when clods have dissolved and pav- 
ing-stones become dust. 

Not four years have passed by since Pro- 
fessor Drummond visited the colleges of 
this New World. Those whose good for- 
tune it was to hear Mr. Drummond will 
recall the patrician face and form, the finely 
cut features, the countenance suffused with 
solar light, the great, rich, wonderful soul 
throbbing and blushing behind its defenses 
of flesh and cuticle. He seemed what the 
. lower class men in his university called him, 
the Prince. In his addresses to college stu- 
dents the author of ‘‘Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World’’ stood forth the reconciler 
of science and faith. 

The laws of light and heat and gravity 
upon one side of a river are identical with 
those laws upon the farther shore. In 
his argument Mr. Drummond asserted 
that the soul in its critical hours is con- 
trolled by the laws of God as truly as suns 
and planets that sweep forward under the 
embrace of physical laws. While this seer 
and scientist spake, how easy to be a scien- 
tist in the realm that is seen! How easy, 
also, to be a Christian, toward the realm 

211 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


that is unseen! At the noblest vantage 
point in Paris stands the Arch de Triomphe, 
a central point to which all streets converge. 
And while this gifted man reasoned of the 
world of matter and the world of mind, men 
felt that all the pathsof faith and science 
converge toward Jesus Christ. If the physi- 
cists moved along the pathway of matter, 
Drummond was found walking in the way 
with them. If the Christian moved along 
the pathway of faith, lo! Drummond was 
found walking in the way with him! Recall- 
ing that hour, scientist and Christian alike 
might well say, ‘‘Did not our hearts burn 
within us, as he opened unto us the way, 
the words, and the works of God?’’ 

If we are to rightly estimate Professor 
Drummond’s contribution to modern knowl- 
edge, we must go back in thought to the 
conditions that prevailed a generation ago. 
In 1850, when Emerson and Carlyle, Dar- 
win and Tyndall, were young men, the new 
doctrine of evolution began to make wide 
and deep the chasm between science and 
theology, so that the seer felt he could not 
pass over to the scientist, while the scientist 
thought he could not cross over to the seer. 


212 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


In those days many religious teachers held 
that the Bible was a book of geology, astron- 
omy, and politics, as well as a book of 
morals; that as yet scarcely six thousand 
summers had passed over our earth; that 
the story of Jonah andthe story of Adam 
and Eve were sober history rather than 
inspiring parable, and so far from the Bible 
being a book of progressive revelation, that 
it was, verbally and literally, the book of 
God. 

Over against this group of noble Puritans, 
who have achieved great things for law and 
liberty and free institutions, stood the 
group of men whose Bible was the book of 
nature. With a great, deep love for things 
seen, they studied rocks with the lichens 
upon them, seeds and the shrubs that 
sprang therefrom, while buds, birds, and 
beasts were analyzed and compared. Darwin 
went down into the sea to study its ooze; 
Tyndall climbed the Matterhorn to study 
the forms of water in snowflakes and ice 


crystal; Lyall and Miller read the writings ~ 


of the rock pages; Spencer noted how bark 

huts became marble houses; how the fig leaf 

became a woolen garment; how the rude 
213 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


pictures upon the Indian’s blanket became 
at last the canvas of a great artist; how the 
king, who was a Hercules in body, gave 
place to Gladstone, the Hercules in mind; 
how the clay idol and the drum of the 
magician gave place to the great cathedral 
and the noble litany. 

In the first flush of enthusiasm for the 
new generalization, everything was claimed 
for the formula of evolution. The early 
vagaries of those who were intoxicated with 
the great discovery now seem almost incred- 
ible. Like the German who had never seen 
a picture of an elephant, and therefore 
evolved one out of his inner consciousness, 
so Professor Huxley evolved his bathybius. 
This bathybius was said to be a vast sheet 
of gelatin matter lying under the ocean (just 
as ‘‘the mother’’ exists in the vinegar), 
being, indeed, the mother of all things that 
live in land or sea or sky. Unfortunately 
the scientists with their dredging machines 
soon discovered that ‘‘ the bathybius’’ had 
no real existence, and was as mythical as the 
wooden horse of Homer. Other statements 
equally extreme tended to further the preju- 
dice against materialistic evolution, notably 

214 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


the assertion that the steam engine, a cylin- 
der press, and an ‘‘Iliad’’ or a ‘‘Hamlet’’ 
are all latent in the fire-mist and the rain- 
cloud. 

Midway between the theologians holding 
the old views and the scientists holding the 
new views stood a great body of citizens, 
thoughtful and scholarly, who soon pro- 
nounced the old theology and the new sci- 
ence alike untenable. Men of reflection 
felt that, in view of the discoveries of 
geology, it was asking too much of reason 
to believe that the earth was made in six 
days, or to hold to the cosmogony of Gen- 
esis. But these citizens also felt that science 
taxed their credulity too far in making the 
clod to be the creator of a violet, or a drop 
of ooze from the swamp write the “‘Odyssey’’ 
or “‘Iliad.’’ Children reading ‘‘The Ara- 
bian Nights’’ may believe that a magician 
can call a flower, a monkey, and a man 
from his magic jug. But wise men decline 
to believe that force, even when spelled with 
a capital F, can plan the wing of a bird, the 
hues of a violet, the beauty of a babe, the 
poem or oration of sage or seer. A lump 
of mud does not become a creator when 

215 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


spelled with a capital M, and God cannot 
be expelled from His universe by being 
spelled with a small g. 

When a few years had passed by, men 
who were neither theologians nor scientists, 
like Tennyson and Browning, Ruskin and 
Carlyle and Emerson, began to make them- 
selves heard. ‘‘If man,’’ said Browning, 
“*is buffeted about by fate and chance, if he 
comes from the earth and goes to the earth, 
then time is a maniac, scattering dust and 
life a fury slinging flame.’’ Tennyson 
asserted that “‘if man is to be blown about 
the desert dust or sealed within the iron 
hills, then he is a monster, a dream, a dis- 
cord, and dragons of the prime that tear 
each other in their slime are mellow music 
matched with him.’’ When Matthew Arnold 
discerned that morality seemed likely to fall 
with the fall of the religious sentiment, he 
straightway began to ascribe to the unknown 
one after another of the divine attributes. 

The traveler on Mount Rigi receives from 
his guide a bit of rose-colored glass through 
which the clouds glow and flame. But 
should the weary traveler stretch out his 
hand and break off a chunk of damp cloud, 

216 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


the fact that the cloud was suffused with 
light would make it a poor substitute for 
the wheaten loaf. Considered as a color 
effect, ‘‘the suffusing of morality, with 
emotion’’ is highly successful; considered 
as a substitute for God, it seems somewhat 
insufficient. Romanes, one of the most 
gifted of all the disciples of Darwin, returned 
to his Christian faith, and asserted that he 
knew no formula of evolution that did not 
require an infinite God to make it workable. 
Evolution began to be theistic. Scientists 
used it to describe God’s way of doing 
things. Men like Clerk-Maxwell, Professor 
Balfour, Professor Tait, Sir William Thom- 
son, St. George Mivart, and Romanes began 
to declare that science and theology alike 
were both right and wrong. As time went 
on it was discovered that the young men in 
the colleges and universities, under the head 
of President McCosh and Professor Le Conte 
and John Fiske, were emphasizing the words 
‘Christian evolution.’’ Lord Salisbury, 
the present premier of England, in his 
annual address as president of the Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, 
affirmed that the tendency of the latest sci- | 


217 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ence was unequivocally and aggressively 
toward theism, indeed, but also toward a 
simple Christian faith. 

How great is the change that has passed 
over the world of scientific thought may be 
inferred from an authorized statement by a 
well-known fellow of the Royal Society of 
London: ‘‘I have known the British associ- 
ation under forty-one different presidents, 
all leading men of science, with the excep- 
tion of two or three appointed on other 
grounds. On looking over these forty-one 
names I counted twenty-one who are men 
of Christian belief and character, while 
only four disbelieved in any divine revela- 
tion. These figures indicate that religious 
faith, rather than unbelief, has characterized 
the leading men of the association.’’ 

At the moment when the thoughts of men 
were busiest on the relation of religion and 
science, Professor Drummond published his 
first book, called ‘‘Natural Law in the Spir- 
itual World.’’ The essence of this epoch- 
making volume is that evolution is the su- 
preme word for religion,as well as for science. 
But by evolution Mr. Drummond did not 
mean Darwinism, for that is a proposition 

218 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


as yet unproved; nor Spencerianism, which 
is as yet incomplete; nor Weismanism, which 
is in the hottest fires of criticism; but 
evolution as a generic term, setting forth 
God’s way of doing things; for this young 
knight of the new era believed in God 
with all his heart and mind and soul and 
strength. 

When that statue, Venus de Milo, was un- 
earthed by a peasant plowing in the field, 
men explained its beauty by assuming a 
sculptor whose genius was fully equal to 
such beauty wrought into the marble. And 
behind the dim unknown, beneath the 
mountains, in the deep depths beyond 
Orion and the Pleiades, Drummond saw the 
garments of an unseen God, the God of 
unity and law and love. He beheld the 
Creator pour form and beauty into all things 
that are. Hesawan incandescent, nebulous 
mass, flinging off its outer rings, those rings 
cooling into planetary systems; this red-hot 
earth put on an outer crust; the ice-plow 
crush rocks into dust for soil; in a vision 
hour he beheld the source of all life breathe 
life into matter dead hitherto; he heard the 
Divine Voice command the soil to ascend 

219 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


toward shrub and tree; animals also joined 
the strange upward procession; afar off he 
beheld the face of our father man; he saw 
man a rude, low savage, schooled by heat 
and cold and hunger, and while he beheld 
the savage, he threw away his war club or 
fashioned it into a plow handle. Imitating 
the bee hiving its sweets, a granary was 
founded and filled. Inspired from above, 
he saw the tepees give place to cities, where 
arts, industries, laws, liberty, religion, 
reigned. In an hour of beatific vision he 
saw earth exhaling spirits into the open 
heavens, where life went on and men went 
upward, increasing in knowledge and hap- 
piness and love. Remembering that Christ 
said, ‘‘First the blade, then the ear, then 
the full corn in the ear,’’ Drummond 
asserted that evolution was the one supreme 
word for religion, the greatest generalization 
-our world has ever known. 

Professor Drummond was scarcely five and 
thirty years of age when he placed the man- 
uscript of ‘‘Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World’’ in the hands of his printer and 
started to the Dark Continent, to write his 
book on ‘‘ Tropical Africa.’’ When the sci- 


220 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


entist returned he found himself famous. 
His book was the most striking success of 
the year; his fascinating theories were being 
discussed in every great journal and review; 
his name had become a household word in 
two continents. Seldom, if ever, has a 
philosophical work created so great a sensa- 
tion. Now that ten years have passed by, 
we know that his pages have a permanent 
fascination. The gist of the volume is the 
analogy between God’s laws in the realm of 
matter and His laws in the realm of spirit. 
The scholar noted that Huxley and Tyndall 
denied the possibility of spontaneous life. 
These scientists used heat to kill the germs 
of life in water, and then sealed the water up 
in jars. When long time had passed, they 
found the water as devoid of life as isa 
piece of ice. They asserted that, though 
millions of years passed, a piece of rock and 
a drop of water were absolutely devoid of 
power to generate life. ‘‘Science knows,’’ 
said Professor Huxley, “‘that life comes 
only from life.”’ 

Having noted that once a plant is alive 
it can throw down its roots to crystals 
and gases and clothe them with the mys- 

221 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


tery of life, Drummond also affirmed that 
spiritual life is not spontaneous, but is 
breathed by God into the soul of each pub- 
lican, or each Saul on his way to Damascus, 
and that once touched with this breath of 
life and love, man could clothe his every 
thought and deed with the mystery of this 
new spiritual impulse. Having justified the 
great crisis of the soul called repentance 
and conversion, as exhibited in some Luther 
or Paul, Drummond goes on to study the 
problem of degeneration and death. A 
rock is dead because it has no relation with 
the world outside; a plant has a little life © 
because it has its root; a bird is related to 
the air as well as to earth; man adds many 
vital functions. If life is an increase of 
correspondence, death is the cutting of the 
nerves of relation. Cut off the nerve of 
sight, and color dies; cut the nerve of hear- 
ing, and sound dies; cut the nerve of sensa- 
tion, and movement dies; cut the nerve of 
food, and the last tie is sundered, and death 
is complete. How fascinating Drummond’s 
study of the problem of culture, growth, 
parasitism, classification, eternal life! ‘‘If 
the Bible shows how to go to heaven,”’ 
222 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


nature, interpreted by Drummond, shows 
**how the heaven goeth.’’ 

Mr. Drummond's last book is upon ‘‘The 
Ascent of Man.’’ This is a study of the 
human body, fearfully and wonderfully 
made, through the long processes of nature 
and God. Drummond viewed the body as 
an intricate and complicated sensorium, a 
delicate and complex mechanism, with eye 
and ear and outer sense, as open windows 
through which rushed the world of truth 
and beauty, color, sound, andsense. Guided 
by the embryologists, the scientist notes 
that each individual man passes through the 
stages of fish, bird, and mammal, and is at 
last born an embryonic man. In the body 
of the babe are compacted all achievements 
of the entire animal world, each bone, each 
nerve, each ganglion. It is as if “‘the mod- 
ern stem-winding watch should assemble all 
the features of the old time-keepers every 
minute.’’ It is as if the modern loom should 
assemble all the features of all the looms 
since the time of Arkwright. It is as if the 
modern locomotive should include every 
cog and wheel used by all inventors since 
the time of Watt. In reality the last loco- 

223 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


motive includes only the best features of 
former engines. Strangely enough, the 
human embryo includes every phase of life 
known to every animal creature, as if man 
had passed through the experience of all. 
Astronomers discovered the planet Nep- 
tune after its existence had been predicted 
from the disturbance induced in the orbit of 
Uranus. Drummond noted that, while the 
adult man has only twelve pairs of ribs and 
certain animals have fourteen, it was pre- 
dicted that in a certain stage the infantile 
man would be found with fourteen pairs, a 
prediction that was actually verified. Study- 
ing the scaffolding of the body, the scientist 
mentions some fifty or sixty organs—e. g., 
vermiform appendix—that are vestiges of 
powers once highly useful, but now being 
slowly atrophied. The lower animals ascend 
the witness stand and testify as to the origin 
of man’s body. He notes the arrest of 
the body, and affirms that the earth will 
never know a higher creature than man. 
His argument is very plain. The time was 
when man developed his hands through 
use, but now the loom and the lathe toil for 
his hands. The time was when man’s legs 
224 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


had many duties; now their contracts are 
fulfilled by steam and electricity, and the 
development of the limbs has been arrested. 
Once the eye and the ear were very acute, 
but now the lenses of the optician have 
arrested the development of the eye. 

In those fascinating chapters called ‘‘The 
Evolution of the Father and Mother’’ Mr. 
Drummond shows how the law of force 
and the survival of the fittest became the 
law of love and self-sacrifice. In times past 
the strongest alone survived, while the weak 
went to the wall. But motherhood came 
to lift the shield above weakness. Love 
caused weakness to survive. In mother- 
hood egotism became altruism and force 
was transmuted into self-sacrifice. Slowly 
God taught the strong to bear the burdens 
of the weak. Father and mother, through 
personal experience, came to understand 
God as the world’s larger Father and great 
burden bearer. At last to man was revealed 
God as washing the feet of each insect, caring 
for each lily and sparrow, bearing man’s 
ignorance and weakness and sin. In the 
fullness of time God had lifted man so 
high that at last, before man’s wondering 

225 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


vision, there was unveiled the face of that 
one who ‘‘seemest human and _ divine,’’ 
Jesus Christ, the world’s supreme guide and 
teacher, the ideal of all that is best for 
man, the revelation of all that is truest and 
sweetest in the God of infinite love. 

If Martin Luther and Bishop Butler came 
at a strategic hour, it was the good fortune 
of Professor Drummond to speak at one of 
those psychological moments when the 
world, eager and expectant, waited for 
some prophet of reconciliation. Not an 
intellectual giant himself, it was given him 
to usher in an era of friendship between 
giants hitherto at enmity. He taught the 
world that it was possible to be a rigid sci- 
entist and also a sweet-hearted Christian. 
With him character was a thousand times 
more than culture, and Christ’s words about 
the soul were infinitely more important than 
man’s words about sticks, stones, and stars. 
The title of one of his books, ‘‘Love, the 
Greatest Thing in the World,’’ contains the 
genius of his practical teachings. He used 
to say that if man cared for quantity, God 
cared for quality. In his philosophy one 
Christ-cultured life is worth more to a nation 


226 


Memoirs of Henry Drummond 


and a city than a hundred thousand ordinary 
persons. In wounded vanity, disappointed 
hopes, and selfish chagrin he found the 
*‘vulgar universal sources of man’s unrest.’’ 
But as no fever can attack a perfectly sound 
body, so Professor Drummond thought ‘‘no 
fever of unrest can disturb a soul which 
breathes the air or learns the ways of Christ.’’ 
Stricken with death, this Christian scientist 


said: ‘“Men sigh for the wings of a dove, 


that they may fly away and be at rest. But. 
flying away will not help them. The king-, 


dom of God is within you. It is Christ that 
teaches the secret of the great calm and the 
invulnerable faith.’” Then with untroubled 
heart the seer and scientist fell asleep, and 


“Passed to where, beyond these voices, there is 
rest and peace.” 


227 





IX 


The Opportunities of Leisure and Wealth, 
an Outlook upon the Life of Lord 
Shaftesbury 


229 


And Sir Launfal said, “I behold in thee 
An image of Him who died on the tree;” 


He parted in twain his single crust, 

He broke the ice on the streamlet’s brink, 

And gave the leper to eat and drink, 

*Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 
*Twas water out of a wooden bowl,— 

Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 
And ’twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 


As Sir Launfal mused with downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side, 

But stood before him glorified, 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,— 
Himself the Gate whereby men can 

Enter the temple of God in Man. 


“Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 
In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 
Behold, it is here,—this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 
This water his blood that died on the tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another’s need; 
» Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.” 
The Vision of Sir Launfal (Lowell), Dp. 701, 702, 70}. 


IX 


THE OPPORTUNITIES OF LEISURE AND 
WEALTH, AN OUTLOOK UPON THE 
LIFE OF LORD SHAFTESBURY 


In all ages the human heart has hungered 
for heroes. Every generation has sought 
some forehead over which to break its ala- 
baster box, some feet at which to empty 
out all its flowers, its love, its tears. The 
quality of hero the age has admired gives 
the measure of the nation’s civilization. 
Long centuries ago Cicero ranked his city 
low in the scale of progress, because there 
were few citizens who loved eloquence or 
philosophy or art, but many who crowded 
after the golden chariot of the conqueror. 
In Tasso’s time the sentiment had changed, 
for one day when Michael Angelo completed 
the lustrous angels on the ceiling of the 
Sistine chapel the admiring multitude tore 
his brushes into fragments for mementos, 
and making a chariot of their arms, bore the 
artist home to his lodgings. 

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A little later, in Scotland, the ideal hero 
was a patriot. It was Robert Bruce who 
cast the sacred spell upon the people. He 
who wished to be enshrined in human 
hearts must die upon the battlefield and 
with his blood make beautiful some flag of 
liberty. It is the glory of our age that the 
modern hero stands forth armed not with 
swords and spears, but weaponed with love 
and kindness, with service and sympathy. 
The new knight errant toils for the orphan 
and the invalid, or labors for the children of 
the unhappy poor. It was the misfortune 
of the ancient era that it taught Ulysses how 
to bend his bow, but not what to shoot; 
taught Ajax how to forge iron, but left him 
to fashion the metal into manacles for slaves; 
taught Gutenberg how to use movable type, 
but not what ideas to print; taught Galileo’s 
age how to use the telescope and see the stars 
distant millions of miles, but not how to see 
the woes and wrongs in the next street, the 
sorrows of serfs and slaves, the distress of 
debtors and prisoners. 

““The peril of the republic,’’ said Carlyle, 
‘‘will be the misgovernment of its great 
cities.’ Now that fifty years have passed 

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Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


the prophecy has become history, and our 
large towns have passed under the rule of 
Circe’s cup. The great scholar saw that in 
a world where leisure alone makes men mas- 
ters in the realm of learning, that leisure 
must also be invoked to make men masters 
in the art of governing great cities. But if 
Carlyle discerned that the dominion of the 
demagogue could be broken by the rule of a 
leisure class, in our time a thousand new 
considerations emphasize his thought. 
To-day an enemy is abroad in the land, 
sowing tares by day and by night, lighting 
the flames of class hatred. 

Strangely enough the objects of hatred 
are those who in times past have been 
deemed most serviceable to the community. 
In the city he who by saving what other 
men wasted has produced $500,000 is a 
plutocrat and a baron; in the town he who 
has $50,000 is the public enemy; in the 
remote community he who has $10,000 is 
the object of scorn and attack; while in 
Kentucky recently, when a group of tramps, 
making their usual winter excursion into 
the South, met a young traveling peddler, 
they were so incensed against this plutocrat 


233 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


who had one handbag and two bundles of 
knickknacks, where they had only rags, 
that they fell upon this youth, and finding 
in his knapsack indubitable proofs of wick- 
edness, they beat him as an enemy of the 
human race and left him half dead. 

If the republic is to go forward unto bet- 
ter laws, happier homes, greater happiness, 
to the toil of the working classes must be 
added the toil of the leisure classes. Our 
jails are full, our haunts of vice are full, our 
reputation as hoodlums is also fully estab- 
lished. But in the light of what Ruskin 
and Shaftesbury accomplished for London, 
should a score of men and women of the 
leisure class give their lives to the higher life 
of this community, an affirmative answer 
might be given to that momentous ques- 
tion, ‘‘Can we make ours a true city of 
God?”’ 

To every department of nature and life 
God has given its own voice and prophet. 
Each stone and star, each bird and beast, 
hath its special advocate. To the planets 
God gave Newton, to the bees Huber, Lin- 
nzus to the plants, Audubon to the birds, 
Phillips to the slave, Nightingale to the sol- 

234 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


diers, Livingstone to the savage. Having 
given Ruskin as a voice to genius, He gave 
Shaftesbury as a voice for social position and 
rank. ‘‘The history of the progress of the 
working classes in this century,’’ said the 
present prime minister of England, ‘‘is very 
largely the history of one man’s life—that 
of Shaftesbury.’’ Very early in his career 
this child of high rank and wealth received 
from God a retainer against every form of 
oppression and wrong. Of his unique tal- 
ents it has been said that greatness was 
hereditary in that distinguished family. 
Like the famous vine in Hampton Court, 
with its proportions of a forest tree, his 
ancestral stalk had for generations ripened 
great mental treasure. But to the gifts of 
high birth were added the enrichment of 
Harrow and Oxford; afterward came several 
years of travel, expelling narrowness and 
prejudice, and making the youth a citizen of 
the universe. This child of good fortune 
was only five-and-twenty when he took his 
place in Parliament, yet as the young lark 
strikes a few notes of sweet song when only 
a few weeks have passed over its life, so 
very early in his career this youth madea 
235 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


revelation of his innermost spirit and 
genius. One winter’s night he was sitting 
with a member of the cabinet beside his fire- 
place watching the flames and the sparks fly 
up the chimney. Within all was beauty, 
comfort, and happiness, but without the 
sleet and wind were beating upon the win- 
dow, and in the winter’s blast and darkness 
wandered full many an orphan boy. At ten 
o'clock the young man excused himself to 
his host and started out to look for some 
unfortunate, lost in the darkness and cold, 
even as the monks and their faithful dogs of 
the St. Bernard monastery go forth in the 
storm to save travelers lost in the snow. 
At that time Shaftesbury had hired a shelter 
house in the east end of London, near 
Whitechapel road. 

Very pathetic was that midnight scene. 
With his lantern and his two hired helpers 
Shaftesbury made his way to the end of 
London bridge, where he knew he would 
find twenty or thirty men huddled up close 
together to keep warm. As his lantern fell 
upon their faces, one and another, pricked by 
conscience, would leap to his feet and spring 
quickly into the darkness. Soon he learned 

236 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


where were the sheltered spots in which 
the unfortunates hid themselves, the ends 
of bridges where newsboys nestled, the stair- 
ways that offered shelter to wanderers, the 
homes of vice, the haunts of crime. Before 
two o'clock the next morning Shaftesbury 
had collected some thirty boys and men and 
led them away to his new shelter, where each 
received his bowl of soup and loaf of bread, 
his bath, and thick blanket for the night’s 
rest. For more than forty years, when parlia- 
ment rose at midnight and other members 
went home, it was Shaftesbury’s custom to 
go forth to search out those of whom Christ 
said, “‘I was sick and in prison and ye vis- 
ited me.’’ ‘‘Inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me.’’ 

The artist who would paint this man, 
who was one of the most distinguished 
members of Parliament, and also of her 
Majesty’s government, must represent the 
tall figure, refined face, and the patrician 
posture, not as he stood upright, deliver- 
ing some speech in the house, but rather 
as he stooped to flash his lantern upon 
the wanderers sleeping at midnight under 


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Waterloo bridge. But let no man under- 
estimate Shaftesbury’s self-denial. The 
traveler who has visited the ancestral 
home, driven through the long avenue of 
beeches and elms, entered the mansion with 
its towers and turrets, looked into the faces 
of those six earls who went before Shaftes- 
bury, or stood in the vast library or galleries 
with their treasures, alone can understand 
what Shaftesbury denied himself when he 
turned from his elegant opulence and 
refined leisure to spend his nights and days 
in alleviating the woes of the poor. He 
loved music and the drama, and did much 
to advance their interests. He loved the 
company of scholars and statesmen; he 
loved great men and gracious women. But 
he held his rank and position as trusts in 
the interest of weakness. Whoever came to 
him in trouble brought a message from God 
—his trouble being a letter of introduction. 
Homer tells us that when a celestial being 
visited the battlefield of Troy and saw the 
gash in the foot of Patrocles she shed bitter 
tears and turned away from the grewsome 
sight. Shaftesbury also could not pass mis- 
fortune without shedding tears, yet he fled 
238 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


not away from want, but rather to want, 
that he might stanch the wound and heal 
the woe. 

The first of Shaftesbury’s great reform 
movements was in the interests of that class 
of London’s poor termed the street arabs, 
the waifs and strays of the metropolis. 
These were the children of the most igno- 
rant class, as sturdy of growth as weeds ina 
wheatfield. They swarmed the streets, they 
gamboled in the gutters, they haunted the 
markets in search of castaway food, they 
nested under porches and stairways, they 
crept into stables or under arches for lodg- 
ings. They lived as the dogs of Constanti- 
nople live, the outcasts of the great city. 
The statesman saw that such an atmosphere 
could no more rear good citizens than the 
breath of hot Vesuvius could cover the 
mountains with roses and violets. One 
Sunday afternoon in 1840 Shaftesbury took 
the celebrated Arnold of Rugby for a tour 
through Bloomsbury, noted for its filth and 
fever, its haunts of vice and crime. 

The memory of that visit haunted Arnold 
by day and night for weeks afterward. 
‘*These classes,’’ he wrote, ‘‘form the rid- 

239 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


dle of our civilization, and may yet destroy 
us as did the Vandals of old.’’ In order to 
acquaint himself fully with the problems of 
the poor, for ten years Shaftesbury gave his 
Sunday afternoons, and often the mornings 
of his week days, to the exploration of the 
lanes and alleys of the tenement house dis- 
tricts. In his report to Parliament he speaks 
of houses so foul that his physician had to 
stand outside the door to write the prescrip- 
tion; of walls that oozed grime; of rook- 
eries whose bricks sweat filth; of a cellar 
where four families occupied the single room, 
with chalk lines marking the boundaries of 
each. After conducting the committee ap- 
pointed by Parliament through this region, 
he reported that one-fourth of the inhab- 
itants of the great metropolis were born 
amid these filthy surroundings. He re- 
minded England that the schoolhouse must 
go before the ballot-box, and that if each 
outcast child was some day to use his vote 
and rule like a king, the threshold of the 
schoolroom must be made as attractive for 
the boys as the threshold of a king’s palace. 

The romantic story of how Shaftesbury 
founded fifty or more ‘“‘ragged’’ schools, 

240 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


attended by some ten thousand children, is 
now a part of history, asis his system of 
night schools, industrial schools, and Sun- 
day schools, where boys and girls were 
taught not only sacred truths, but also how 
to make their own clothes, how to weave 
doormats, make hassocks, print handbills, 
mastering many of the simpler handicrafts. 
The thrilling story of how Shaftesbury cov- 
ered all London with his schoolrooms, that 
with their transformations wrought upon 
child life—because sacred as sanctuaries— 
comes to us with the force of divine indict- 
ment, for in the great cities of our land, 
awaiting the friendship of the leisure classes, 
are many hundreds of thousands of children 
whose footsteps never cross the threshold of 
a Bible school, who have never had child- 
hood softened by its music, nor manhood 
molded by its lesson. 

Shaftesbury’s movements in the interest 
of the working girls and shopwomen of 
London throws a flood of light upon one of 
the most vexed questions of our own city. 
In New York wise men have successfully 
inaugurated a system of small loans for the 
poor, through pawnshops that are largely 


241 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the outcome of Shaftesbury’s first enter- 
prise. Having founded several homes for 
poor girls and working women, he found 
that many who sold flowers and water-cress 
during the summer were without employ- 
ment during the four months of winter, 
when most of all they needed it, nor had 
they the money to prepare to enter a new 
occupation adapted to the cold season. Lord 
Shaftesbury therefore conceived the idea of 
founding a loan association to assist women 
to support their families. 

His agents bought chocolate and coffee 
stalls, waffle boards and ‘‘baked potato 
ovens,’’ while for boys, money was loaned to 
buy the outfit for boot blacking. During 
one winter he made loans of from one to two 
pounds each among a thousand poor women, 
whose daily toil was the sole support of an 
entire family. In reviewing his loans for 
twenty years he found that during the period 
his entire losses were less than fifty pounds, 
and these were through sickness or death of 
the borrower rather than through fraud. In 
no case was it necessary to enforce the pay- 
ment by taking away the ovens or stands. 
Most of this money was repaid at the rate 

242 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


of a sixpence or a shilling perweek. Refer- 
ring to one poor creature whom he had 
picked up at night, he says: ‘‘One night I 
found a stranded bit of driftwood. She 
seemed heartbroken, and I started her in 
business with a cress and coffee stand. Her 
fidelity and service of love among the poor 
in the years since her reform have made her 
a veritable angel of mercy in the tenement 
district where she lives. During a long life 
I have proved that not one kind word ever 
spoken, not one kind deed ever done, but 
sooner or later returns to bless the giver, and 
becomes a chain binding men with golden 
bands to the throne of God.”’ 

Extending his reforms into other realms, 
Shaftesbury began to look into the lodg- 
ing-house system. First he erected in the 
tenement house district a home for young 
men just in from the country who wanted 
to find a place where the decencies of life 
were observed, and wished shelter for a 
moderate rent. He saw to it that each 
room was well lighted, ventilated, and had 
the best sanitary provisions, adding some 
conveniences then called luxuries. To his 
great astonishment the enterprise that was 


243 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


begun asa benefaction ended as an invest- 
ment paying six per cent. But all about 
were thousands of old tenements falling into 
decay and breeding physical pestilence and 
moral death. With tireless enthusiasm he 
set about purging this reeking inferno, a 
task that involved ten of the best years of 
his life. 
Interesting Peabody, the Boston banker, 
Shaftesbury prepared a bill that provided 
for the condemnation and destruction of 
hundreds of old houses, while in the speci- 
fications for new buildings regard was had 
for sunshine, air, and the size of the rooms, 
their periodic whitewashing and cleansing, 
and the number of persons who could occupy 
a given house. This was the first successful 
effort to reach the very dregs of poverty, and 
cleanse the darkest dens of vice, misery, and 
sin. In ten years Shaftesbury wrought a 
striking transformation in the east end of 
London. Even the London TZzmes con- 
fessed that not less than eighty thousand 
people had enjoyed the benefits of the re- 
form. Theauthor of ‘‘Municipal Govern- 
ment’’ tells us that Shaftesbury’s lodging- 
houses furnish models for the world, and 


244 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


commend themselves to the philanthropists 
as the best method as yet devised for cleans- 
ing these bogs of misery and vice. 

For children and youth cannot be pure 
within when all is darkness and filth with- 
out. When the company of Grecian youth 
went forth to found the city, and were 
injured by much draining of swamps and liv- 
ing in miasma, we are told the fairies came 
and in the night laid pipes for draining off 
the foul water, spanned the streams with 
bridges, changed the huts into houses, built 
temples and palaces on the public squares, 
surrounded all by a vast wall for their pro- 
tection. But the story how fairies trans- 
formed a city of mud into one of marble 
seems as nothing compared to this man’s 
transformation of these lands of misery, 
dirt and vice into a region characterized by 
comfort, cleanliness, and physical happiness 
for eighty thousand men and women. 

One of the most interesting of Shaftes- 
bury’s reforms was his movement for the 
fifty thousand costermongers of London. 
The district in which they dwelt is one of 
mean streets, close alleys, gloomy tene- 
ments, being as barren of beauty or a green 


245 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


spot as a heap of sand or cinders. There 
little children toil, sweeping the filth from 
the streets; the men and women sell dried 
fish, fruit, old iron, pins, and needles. Not 
Stanley plunging through the tropic swamps 
and forests of Africa to investigate the 
sorrows of the dwarfs dwelling in the tree- 
tops, and the woes of those who suffered 
from the slave traffic was more persevering 
than was Shaftesbury in his investigations of 
the woes of the costermongers. Deeply 
interested in their welfare, he became their 
representative in Parliament, and succeeded 
in passing a bill in the interests of their dis- 
trict. He then bought a donkey and cart, 
and putting his name and coat-of-arms 
thereupon, he gave it to a poor girl to support 
her widowed mother. Then he organized a 
costers’ fair, and founding a humane society 
in the interests of dumb beasts, each year 
he presented a prize donkey to the boy or 
man whose own beast showed the sign of 
having the best care. 

For the twenty thousand children in the 
district he founded night schools, Sunday 
schools, and large industrial classes, with 
clubs for the men and women. One year 

246 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


the thousand boys planned a presentation 
to their benefactor, and uniting their pen- 
nies, purchased the finest donkey they could 
find in London. At the proper moment, 
when Shaftesbury was in the chair, the don- 
key, gayly decorated with ribbons and draw- 
ing the cart, with his name upon it, was led 
upon the platform and presented to Shaftes- 
bury, while five thousand boys and their 
parents and friends stood upon chairs, and 
waving handkerchiefs, cheered wildly. In 
accepting the gift, with a touch of pathos, 
he said: ‘‘In closing my long life I desire 
only that it may be said of me that I have 
served men with a patience and resignation 
like unto this faithful beast.’’ 

Full speech over Shaftesbury’s life and 
labor is impossible. Passing through a for- 
est in October, the pilgrim may bear away 
a single golden bough, not all oaks or elms. 
It is not an easy task to call the roll of 
Shaftesbury’s manifold labors. He gave 
fifteen years to collecting the facts and 
securing the passage of the lunacy bills that 
give the world our new system of asylums. 
He gave ten years to the factory towns of 
England, and passed bills that ameliorated 

247 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the condition of three hundred thousand 
girls and women and secured the release 
from the looms of forty thousand children 
at two o’clock in the afternoon that they 
might spend three hours in the schoolroom. 
His industrial schools, ragged schools, 
shelter houses, loan associations for working- 
men, and his labor for chimney-sweeps occu- 
pied many more years. During this time 
he was also the co-worker and counselor of 
Cobden and John Bright in the corn-law 
movement. 

It must also be remembered that twice he 
was a member of the cabinet, and for fifty 
years was one of the hardest worked men in 
Parliament. In his later years honors 
poured upon him like a flood. Deputa- 
tions came to him with gifts from every 
part of the land. The whole nation did 
him honor when three hundred of the great- 
est men of England, including the statesmen, 
orators, scientists, scholars, and financiers, 
gave him an ovation at the Mansion House, 
and the mayor formally tendered him the 
freedom of the city of London. Almost 
daily some city sent a deputation to ask him 


248 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


to dedicate some library, gallery, hall, or 
inaugurate some public movement. 

His last public duty was to visit Lord 
Salisbury with regard to the revelations in 
the Pall Mall Gazette. The next day he 
arose in the House of Lords and began a 
speech with the words: ‘‘My lords, I am 
now anold man. When I feel age creeping 
upon me and know I must soon die, I am 
deeply grieved, for I cannot bear to leave 
the world with so much misery in it.’’ 
Overtaxed, that night he called for his 
daughter, and whispered: ‘‘Read me the 
words beginning, ‘The Lord is my shepherd. 
Though I walk in the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil.’ ’’ And while 
she read, a gentle smile came over his face, 
and the great man passed down that way 
o’er which none doth ever return. 

Three days later a plain hearse, with four 
carriages, drove from his home toward 
Westminster Abbey. When the procession 
entered Pall Mall it became evident that all 
London was abroad to do the dead hero 
honor. The blinds were drawn in the great 
clubhouses and mansions, but the sidewalks 


249 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


and lanes were crowded with untold thou- 
sands. Reaching Trafalgar Square, forty 
thousand factory hands, seamstresses, flower 
girls, and laborers from the east end were 
found there assembled. Then came a mile 
through such crowds as London has scarcely 
ever seen. On either side of the street were 
deputations from the Sunday schools, the 
shelters, the homes, the training schools. 
When the hearse approached the coster- 
mongers, a leader lifted a banner with these 
words, ‘‘I was a stranger, and ye took me 
in.’’ The boys from the ragged schools lifted 
this banner, “‘I was sick, and ye visited 
me.’’ Upon a silken flag the leader of a 
thousand working girls had inscribed the 
words, ‘‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of 
the least of these, ye did it untome.’’ An 
hour later, in the great Abbey, were gath- 
ered royalty, lords, commons, city councils, 
the great merchants, financiers, and scholars 
of England. ‘‘This man goeth down to 
the grave,’’ began the orator, ‘‘amid the 
benedictions of the poor and the admiring 
love of the rich.’’ The next day, rising in 
Parliament, Lord Salisbury said; ‘‘ My lords, 


250 


Life of Lord Shaftesbury 


the reforms of this century have been largely 
of England’’; while Mr. Gladstone said, 
“*The safety of our country is not in law 
or legislators, but in Christian gentlemen 
like unto Lord Shaftesbury.”’ 


251 












The Biography of Frances Willard and 


ip E of the Knights of the New Chivalry 


253 


the Heroes of Social Reform—A Study 











Social science affirms that woman’s place in society 
marks the level of civilization. From its twilight in 
Greece, through the Italian worship of the Virgin, the 
dreams of chivalry, the justice of the civil law, and 
the equality of French society, we trace her gradual 
recognition; while our common law, as Lord Brougham 
confessed, was, with relation to women, the oppro- 
brium of the age and of Christianity. For forty years 
plain men and women, working noiselessly, have 
washed away that opprobrium; the statute-books of 
thirty States have been remodeled, and woman 
stands to-day almost face to face with her last claim 
—the ballot. It has been a weary and thankless, 
though successful, struggle. But if there be any 
refuge from that ghastly curse—the vice of great 
cities, before which social science stands palsied and 
dumb—it is in this more equal recognition of woman. 
If, in this critical battle for universal suffrage—our 
fathers’ noblest legacy to us, and the greatest trust 
God leaves in our hands—there will be any weapon, 
which once taken from the armory will make victory 
certain, it will be, as it has been in art, literature, and 
society, Summoning woman into the political arena,.— 
Speeches and Lectures (Wendell Phillips), Dp- 353, 3.54. 


».4 


THE BIOGRAPHY OF FRANCES WILLARD, AND 
THE HEROES OF SOCIAL REFORM—A 
STUDY OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE NEW 
CHIVALRY 


Already an English, a French, and an 
American historian have told the story of 
the achievements of this, closing half cen- 
tury. From different view-points these 
scholars have characterized our epoch as 
illustrious for what it has accomplished in 
politics, in war and wealth, in commerce 
and invention. But if our century has been 
a proud one for all lovers of their kind, its 
preéminence does not rest upon the increase 
of tools releasing the multitudes from 
drudgery; the increase of books releasing 
the multitudes from ignorance; the diffu- 
sion of art releasing the multitudes from 
ugliness; the development of science releas- 
ing the multitudes from squalor, pain, and 
suffering. When long time has passed by, 
historians will see that the crowning glory 

255 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of our century has been the rise of the hu- 
manists and the development of a new order 
of chivalry. 

For the first time in history the material 
forces of society have begun to be Chris- 
tianized, and literature and wealth, position 
and eloquence, have allied themselves with 
the poor and the weak. No longer can rank 
bribe scholarship, or riches monopolize 
genius. In France our epoch has witnessed 
the rise of Victor Hugo’s school, consecrat- 
ing talent to the convicts and the poor of 
great cities. In England Charles Dickens 
pleads the cause of the orphan and the waif 
as typified by Oliver Twist and David 
Copperfield, while Kingsley, Besant, and 
Shaftesbury speak and write for the laborers 
in mines and factories. In our own land 
Harriet Beecher Stowe represents a multi- 
tude of writers who seek to ameliorate the 
lot of the slave and the outcast. The poets 
and essayists, also—Lowell and Whittier, 
Ruskin and Carlyle; those heroic soldiers 
named Gordon and Lord Lawrence, intrepid 
discoverers like Livingstone; living philan- 
thropists and reformers, too, there are, whose 
names may not be mentioned, until death 

256 


Frances Willard 


hath starred them—these all have counted 
themselves as retained by God in the inter- 
_ ests of the weak and the downtrodden. If 
in former centuries a single name like Dante 
or Luther stands for an epoch, the hero being 
like a star riding solitary through the night; 
in our era the humanists and knights of 
social reform are a great multitude—like 
stars, indeed, for brightness and number, 
and like stars, also, in that ‘‘God calleth 
them all by name.’’ 

In all ages the reformers have gone the 
way of contempt, obloquy, and shame, hav- 
ing their Gethsemane. From Paul to 
Luther and Garrison and Gough, these men 
have been the best hated men of their 
times. In our fathers’ day the very skies 
rained lies and cruel slanders upon those 
abolitionists who affirmed that the fugitive 
slave law ‘‘was a compact with hell and a 
league with the devil.’’ But if in the life- 
time of the reformers the fathers stoned the 
prophets through the streets, covered their 
garments with filth, mobbed their halls and 
houses, the children are building monuments 
to the reformer and teaching their sons the 
pathway to the hero’stomb. ‘‘Time writes 

257 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the final epitaph,’’ said Bacon; and we now 
see that those who in their lifetime allied 
themselves with the poor and weak have 
supremacy over the orators and statesmen 
and scholars who loved position and toiled 
for self. 

In the interests of its children and youth, 
what would not this nation give to-day if 
Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate and 
Edward Everett had only refused com- 
promise, stood unflinchingly for principle, 
and marched straight to that certain defeat 
in life that would have meant a certain vic- 
tory after death? In the Pantheon of our 
immortals we now behold those intrepid 
reformers and radicalists who once vexed 
conservatism and annoyed the wealthy 
classes who loved ease, while the jurists and 
merchants and statesmen who sacrificed prin- 
ciple to selfish supremacy have received 
neither statue nor portrait, and have already 
passed into forgetfulness and obscurity. 

But there in the sunlight stands, and shall 
stand forever, that Whittier, whose message 
was, indeed, sweetness and light, but who, 
when the fugitive slave law was passed, 
acted the hero’s part, forged his thunderbolt, 

258 


Frances Willard 


and wrote ‘‘Ichabod’’ across the brow of 
the erring statesman. There, too, is that 
elegant patrician, Wendell Phillips, the idol 
of Boston’s most exclusive circle, the bril- 
liant champion of luxury and conservatism, 
with his ambition for a place in the Senate, 
and supremacy for constitutional law, who 
proudly took his stand beside the slave, and 
knew that all the doors upon the avenues 
had closed behind him, and when his city 
jeered, hurled his polished epithets and 
scornful arrows upon the beautiful women 
and the cowardly men who once had been 
his companions. Nor must we _ forget 
Charles Sumner, with his knowledge of 
international law, his skill in diplomacy, and 
his ambition for foreign service, who gave 
up all his hopes and bound this motto asa 
frontlet between his eyes, ‘‘Bondage must 
be destroyed and liberty established,’’ and 
who was at last knighted by the club of a 
coward, who smote him in the Senate 
chamber and brought the statesman to honor 
and immortality. 

Here, too, is Garrison, serenely setting 
type for the Lzberator, smiling scornfully 
upon the mob howling in the streets below 

259 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


his windows, even though destined an hour 
later to be dragged over the stones with a 
rope around his neck, and who in that hour 
was the only cool man in all the demoniac 
crowd. And here is Lowell, tuning his 
harp to songs of liberty; and Emerson from 
his study flinging cold, philosophical reflec- 
tions into the very teeth of slavery; and 
here is Beecher with his flaming torch kin- 
dling the fires of liberty all over the land; 
and here is Douglass with his scars, speak- 
ing eloquently of the horrors of the slave 
market and the cotton field; and here is 
John Brown with smiling face and sunny 
heart going bravely to his martyrdom; and 
here also the company of noble women with 
their books and songs and stories strength- 
ening the battle line. Nor must we forget 
Florence Nightingale with her crusade in 
the hospital and prison; Horace Mann with 
his crusade against ignorance; Gough with | 
his crusade against intemperance; General 
Booth with his crusade for the neglected 
poor in great cities, and Livingstone toiling | 
unceasingly through weary years to encircle 
the Dark Continent with lighthouses for mind 
and heart. The time was when these 
260 


Frances Willard 


reformers were despised, scoffed at, and 
mobbed, with whose very names men would 
not defile their lips. But now cities are 
erecting their statues in the parks and build- 
ing monuments in the public squares, that 
children and youth may emulate their vir- 
tues. When time hath plowed our cities 
into dust the names of these reformers and 
heroes will survive as enduring monuments 
to our age and civilization. 

To those reformers who sought to destroy 
slavery must now be added those who felt 
that their task had only begun when the 
physical fetters fell off, and so passed swiftly 
on to achieve liberty for each enslaved mind 
and heart. In Frances Willard our age has 
lost one of its noblest daughters, whose 
achievements for God and home and native 
land were such as to rank her as one of the 
most famous women of this century. Only 
those who have lingered long over her books 
and essays, or have passed under the full 
spell of her luminous speech, or have con- 
sidered her wide-reaching influence upon 
our education, our civic institutions, can 
understand why it is that two continents 
mourn for our prophetess of self-renuncia- 

261 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


tion. When Madame de Staél and George 
Eliot were borne to the tomb it could not 
be said of these daughters of genius that in 
a thousand towns and cities the multitudes 
assembled in church or hall to sit with 
bowed heads and saddened hearts, keeping 
a sacred tryst with memory during that 
solemn hour when afar off memorial words 
were being spoken above the silent dead. 
While she lived the American home seemed 
a little safer for her being here. What uni- 
versal sorrow now that she hath gone! 

If titled folk of foreign lands cabled sym- 
pathy and sent wreaths and flowers, the 
children of poverty and suffering also 
crowded the streets along that line of 
funeral march. The death of what private 
individual since Abraham Lincoln’s time 
has called forth a thousand memorial funeral 
services upon the afternoon of one day? 
The time is not yet come for the analysis of 
Frances Willard’s character, or the exhibi- 
tion of her mental or moral traits. Among 
her divine gifts must be included a body 
firmly compacted and of unique endurance, 
yet delicately constituted as an olian 
harp; a voice sweet as a flute, yet heard 

262 


Frances Willard 


of thousands; rare common sense, strength 
of reason and memory, singular insight into 
human nature, intuitive knowledge of pub- 
lic men and measures; tact, sympathy, 
imagination, enthusiasm, with a genius for 
sacrifice and self-renunciation. Early suc- 
cessful as an authoress, highly honored 
with position and rank in the realm of higher 
education, she turned her back upon all 
offers of promotion. 

She organized a work for women through 
women, her brain conceiving the new 
thought, her heart lending it momentum, 
her will executing the vast conception. In 
the beginning she toiled without salary, 
until she had expended her little store, and 
came to such straits that, for want of car- 
fare she had to walk to and from her dark, 
bare office. Soon she set before herself 
the task of addressing the people in every 
city in our land that had ten thousand peo- 
ple. When twelve years had passed by she 
had stood before four thousand audiences, 
a feat surpassed only by Beecher, Gough, 
and Moody. She was largely instrumental 
in securing the enactment of laws in all the 
States of the Union, save Texas, Arkansas, 

263 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


and Virginia, to introduce physiological 
temperance and the scientific study of stim- 
ulants. and narcotics into the curriculum of 
the common school. For years she was 
misunderstood; oft was she cruelly criti- 
cised, full oft despised and scorned. But at 
last she has fulfilled her career. She is now 
with Augusta Stanley and Mary Lyon, with 
Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
Having met them and received their ap- 
proval, what cares she for our praise? As 
was said of Wendell Phillips, so is it of su- 
preme importance to us and our children that 
Frances Willard should think well of us.’’ * 
‘“Whom God hath crowned,’’ let us remem- 
ber, ‘‘man may not discrown.”’ 

Not until our children’s children come to 
write the history of the reform movement 
of this century can the influence of the noble 
women who have toiled for temperance be. 
rightly understood. Nevertheless, if we 
contrast the drinking habits and customs of 
the former generation with those of our 
own era we shall obtain some conception of 
the enormous gains made in national so- 


* P. 597, Oration on Wendell Phillips, in “ Modern 
Perils and Opportunities.”—Joseph Cook. 


264 


Frances Willard 


briety. If to-day in Frances Willard’s 
home, in Evanston, the children and youth 
of ninety-five homes out of each hundred 
have never known the taste of spirits, at the 
beginning of this century drunkenness was 
well-nigh universal. But eighty years have 
passed by since Lyman Beecher said: “‘Rum 
consecrates our baptisms, our weddings, and 
our funerals. Our vices are digging the 
grave of our liberties.’’ About the same 
time, when a prominent merchant of Phila- 
delphia died, and his pastor went to the 
house to the funeral, he found the table 
under the trees was spread with liquor, in 
which the people were freely indulging. 
The writer affirms that on reaching the 
grave, save himself and the grave-digger, 
there was not a man present who was not 
in danger, through intoxication, of falling 
into the grave. Even as late as 1826 the 
ministerial associations of Rhode Island and 
Connecticut provided wine and liquor for 
the annual meeting of the clergy. 

And once the great temperance movement 
was inaugurated, it began as regulation, and 
not as prohibition. The earliest printed 
temperance pledge that has come down to 

265 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


us includes two clauses: (1) No member 
shall drink rum, under penalty of twenty- 
five cents. (2) No member shall be intoxi- 
cated, under penalty of fifty cents. When 
total abstinence was proposed men received 
it with scorn and jeers, and the total ab- 
stainer became almost an outcast. When 
one of the early founders of a temperance 
society in Vermont refused liquor to the 
neighbors who were helping him raise his 
new barn, his friends dropped their tools and 
refused their service, and although the total 
abstainer scoured the township for helpers, 
he was unable to obtain laborers until he 
furnished the usual liquors. Angry at this 
temperance fanatic, one old gentleman ex- 
claimed: ‘‘How bigoted is this abstainer; 
unless checked such fanaticism will ruin the 
country and break up the Democratic 
party’’—which must not be interpreted as 
meaning that the Republicans drank less 
heavily. At last Dr. Cheever wrote his cele- 
brated tract on ‘‘Deacon Giles’ Distillery.’’ 
Using another name, he described the career 
of one Deacon Story, who to his business 
as a distiller added the duties of agent of 
the Bible society, selling bottles from one 
266 


Frances Willard 


counter and Bibles from the other, into 
whose malt vat one day his drunken son fell 
and was drowned. When the distiller read 
his but thinly disguised biography in Dr. 
Cheever’s book, he arrested the scholar for 
libel and threw him into jail. The public 
discussion that followed fell upon the public 
mind like a spark upon the Western prai- 
ries, and soon the whole land was aglow 
with the greatest temperance movement 
known to history. 

Then, just at the critical moment, God 
raised up Gough to trouble the hosts of 
intemperance. At first this reformed book- 
binder stood forth as a color-bearer, leading 
the hosts forward, but soon his flag-staff 
was found to have a spear at the end of 
it. Without the polished scholarship of 
Edward Everett, without the elegant grace 
and charm of Wendell Phillips, without 
the universal genius of Beecher, this re- 
former brought to his task a certain inborn 
impulsive, magnetic, all-enkindling elo- 
quence, that defies analysis, yet for platform 
work has certainly never been surpassed, 
perhaps never equaled. Once in a century 
it is given to a great actor like Irving to 

267 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


put some play of Shakespeare on the stage 
ninety nights in succession. But Gough 
entered Exeter Hall in London, and for 
ninety successive nights, with ever-chang- 
ing lecture, crowded that vast amphitheater 
to the streets with merchants, bankers, 
scholars, with outcasts and drunkards. His 
voice was a noble instrument of many keys; 
his eyes were large and liquid, overflowing 
with kindness, sympathy and good humor; 
he had a dramatic delivery and power of 
imitation that were of the highest order; 
with unrivaled skill he poured forth anec- 
dotes, witticisms, pathetic stories, and argu- 
ments, also, that were merciless in their 
logic and all-convincing in their conclusions. 
For two hours each evening we have seen 
him walk from one end of the platform to 
the other, so that the hearer might ask the 
question, asked of an old Roman orator, 
‘‘How many miles have you talked to- 
night?’’ 

In forty years he addressed fourteen 
thousand audiences, averaging one thou- 
sand hearers each, and traveled more miles 
on his lecture tours than would reach twenty 
times around the globe. Yet by keeping 

268 


Frances Willard 


close to God’s heart and the people, he 
went on gaining in freshness to the very 
end. At last standing before a vast audi- 
ence in Philadelphia, he lifted his hand, 
and with an impressive gesture, said: ‘‘I 
have seven years in the record of my life 
when I was held in the iron grasp of intem- 
perance. I would give the world to blot it 
out; but alas! Icannot.’’ Then with flam- 
ing face and uplifted eyes, he exclaimed, 
‘‘Therefore, young men, make your record 
clean.’’ And because God would have 
these words ever before America’s youth, 
upon the instant came the final’ imperious 
summons, and he fell like a soldier, face to 
face with his foe, and knighted in the very 
thick of his battle. 

If God oft withdraws His leaders, He 
makes Hiswork goon. The period of emo- 
tional excitement and national enthusiasm 
was now to pass into a period of organiza- 
tion and legislative enactment. At a crit- 
ical moment a gifted woman came forward 
to organize a work for women through 
women. Not but that Frances Willard was 
an orator as well as an organizer. Doubt- 
less those who dwell in great cities and have 

269 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


only heard her speak in great halls holding 
two or three thousand people can have little 
conception of her genius for public speech. 
In the very nature of the case she did not 
have a voice like Webster or Beecher, whose 
tones in times of great excitement made the 
windows to rattle, while some said, ‘‘It 
thunders.’’ 

Her greatest oratorical triumphs were in 
villages and cities where some hall holding 
not more than a thousand people was 
crowded with appreciative listeners. At 
such times she stood forth one of the most 
gifted speakers of this generation, achiev- 
ing effects that were truly amazing. What 
ease and grace of bearing! What gentle- 
ness and strength! What pathos and sym- 
pathy! How exquisitely modulated her 
words! If her speech did not flow as a gulf 
stream, if it did not beat like an ocean upon 
a continent, she sent her sentences forth, 
an arrowy flight, and each ‘‘tipped with 
divine fire.’’ Those students of great orators 
who have lingered long over the master- 
pieces of politics and reform are those who 
have most admired the oratorical method 
Frances Willard developed upon the plat- 


270 


Frances Willard 


form. What a world of meaning she 
crowded into some of her epigrams, like 
**The golden rule of Christ will bring the 
golden age to man.’’ When the distin- 
guished philanthropists and reformers and 
citizens of England assembled in the City 
Temple of London to give her a reception, 
and heaped upon her the highest honors, 
those of us who listened to her response 
knew that her reserves of character were 
vast indeed. With what simplicity and 
modesty did she decline all praise, insisting 
that she received these honors simply in the 
name of the women of America, for whom 
England intended them. 

In that time of strained political relations 
between the two nations, with what fine 
patriotism did she speak of her flag, saying: 
‘IT am first a Christian, then I am a Saxon, 
then I am an American, and when I get 
home to Heaven, I expect to register from 
Evanston.’’ To organize a great political 
machine that represents the Republican or 
Democratic party, where cities and counties 
and states are all related as wheel to wheel, 
requires the skill of tens of thousands of 
expert politicians, toiling ceaselessly. But 

271 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


beginning with nothing, in twenty years, 
single-handed, this woman organized the 
women of her country into a vast mechan- 
ism that extended to village and city and 
state and nation, and to foreign lands, with 
machinery for public agitation, a system of 
temperance journals for children and youth, 
for securing instruction upon the nature of 
stimulants in the common schools, with 
more than sixty different departments and 
methods of activity. It has been said that — 
the measure of a career is determined by 
three things: First, the talent that ancestry 
gives; second, the opportunity that events 
offer; third, the movements that the mind 
and will conceive and compel. Doubtless 
for Frances Willard ancestry bestowed rare 
gifts, the opportunity was unique, but that 
which her mind and heart compelled is be- 
yond all measurement. As in times past 
orators have used the names Howard and 
Nightingale for winging their words, for all 
the ages to come editors and publicists and 
speakers will hold up the name of Willard 
for the stimulus and inspiration of genera- 
tions yet unborn. 

Sometimes our temperance reformers are 

272 


Frances Willard 


counted harsh in speech, critical in temper, 
of narrow view-point, lacking in generosity 
and sanity of judgment. But broad minds 
will also be just and generous, even toward 
those who are thought to be extremists. 
The very heart of the temperance reform is 
this single principle: Those strong and well- 
poised persons who will never be injured 
by the use of wine owe something to the 
weak ones who will be destroyed thereby. 
When for three generations a family uses 
liquor in excess, nature registers the deteri- 
oration. His biographer tells us that the first 
Webster represented colossal strength and 
sobriety. This giant had a son, Daniel, 
who represented colossal strength and mod- 
erate drinking, while his son represented 
erratic strength, and his grandson represented 
one who made the amusements of his ances- 
tors to be his occupation. Often ancestry ex- 
plains these who are born with soft nerve 
and flabby brain, and, like the reed, bow 
before the wind of temptation. And the 
strong owe them sympathy, shelter, and 
protection. Our age is still cruel and harsh 
toward the children of weakness and temp- 
tation. Ouralleys and tenement-houses are 


273 


Great Books as Life-Teachers © 


filled with the children of ignorance and 
squalor, who have been cursed by centuries 
of misrule and superstition under foreign 
governments, who were born without nerve 
or poise or self-control. And for the state 
to place stimulants in their hand is for a 
parent to give pistols, razors, and bomb- 
shells to babes to use as playthings. 

Every year our nation expends $1, 100,- 
000,000 for liquor, about $10,000,000 for 
art, and $10,000,000 for literature, and 
$5,000,000 for missions and the ameliora- 
tion of the poor. The wastes through 
intemperance in one American city alone in 
ten years equal the destruction of two Chi- 
cago fires. Could the children of poverty 
in Chicago be induced to give up their 
whisky and beer for the next ten years, the 
saving would develop a playground for chil- 
dren in the center of every ward, develop 
gymnasiums and bath-houses equal to those 
of the Greeks and Romans, erect a Parthenon 
enriched with the pictures and statues of 
the great men of history, build and equip 
twenty manual training schools equal to the 
largest in our city, erect ten art institutes, 
representing the treasures of our museum. 

274 


Frances Willard 


To all young men and maidens comes the 
reflection that all the splendid gifts of talent, 
beauty, wealth, and position have their 
crowning glory when used for the poor and 
weak. The lives of the heroes and reform- 
ers tell us that supremacy does not come 
through running with the currents or flat- 
tering the great in the interests of position, 
or falling in with the multitude that the 
tides of public favor may sweep one on to 
fame and fortune. To-day to many a youth 
tempted to ease and prosperity and dreams 
of ambition comes the silent voice of con- 
science and of Christ, bidding him adhere to 
principle, not policy, and service rather than 
selfishness, and burden-bearing rather than 
ease and luxury. And to many a girl to- 
day, with her beauty and culture and gifts 
that prophesy rare social success, will come 
the sirens singing of ease and luxury and 
position. 

And in the hour of her temptation she 
will sin against her higher ideals, marry 
downward instead of upward, choose a nest 
that is soft and silken, to find long after- 
ward that the palace of luxury is none other 
than a prison; only when the years have 

275 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


gone, suddenly to meet one standing in the 
way like unto the angel of God, whom God 
intended as true mate, and then, behold! 
life is but dust and ashes! Oh, life is full 
of piteous tragedies! What hells in kings’ 
houses! What heavens in garrets! What 
bond-slaves of poverty as well ‘as luxury! 
What princesses are these named “‘The Sis- 
ters of the Poor’’! How does happiness 
bubble like a spring in the heart of these 
heroes who turn their back upon the blan- 
dishments of position and place, and where 
others have said, ‘‘The devil take the hind- 
most,’’ have said, ‘‘I will take the hind- 
most’’! Oh, happy, thrice happy, shall we 
be if in that day of revelation some one 
once wounded like a bird stands forth, some 
one once stormed and in sore need of a 
harbor and refuge, some of Christ’s little 
ones, once scarred and battered with their 
sins, shall rise up and with shining face say, 
‘*Master, I was sick, I was in prison, I was 
an hungered, and this one, Thy disciple, 
ministered unto me’’! There, that radiant 
word shall repay you a thousand times for 
the obloquy, defeat, scorn, and misfortunes 
that always have been heaped upon Christ’s 
heroes and reformers. 
276 


XI 


Blaikie’s “ Personal Life of David Living- 
stone”—A Study of Nineteenth-Cen- 
tury Heroism 


When profane history spreads out before you the 
bloody page of Alexander, and Czesar, and Nero, and 
your heart feels faint and sick, turn away and look 
upon these missionary faces that have gone from 
earth to heaven, and your eyes will dim with tears of 
gratitude that God made man so noble in feelings 
and in destiny. Guizot and Hallam and all the phil- 
osophers of history tell us what good influences came 
from the knights-errant that wandered for a few gen- 
erations over Europe. We are assured that they 
rode to and fro with helmet and sword and armor in 
the interest of equity. It is possible that they devel- 
oped military prowess and some new conception of 
personal honor. But whenever the world’s civiliza- 
tion shall desire to see the heroes that laid the 
deep foundations of our age and the coming more 
golden time, it will have to pass by the glittering 
mail of knights and see the Pauls, and Marquettes, 
and Elliotts, and Duffs moving around wearing the 
sword of the Spirit and the richly jeweled helmet of 
salvation. 

O, the loftiest spirit of earth, the soul of a Paul, or 
a Xavier, or a Livingstone. It is said that men throw 
their offerings down at the feet of the gods because 
the human eye is unable to see and the human arm 
too short to enable the worshiper to place his gar- 
lands upon the forehead of Deity. With similar 
weakness and humility we all, of a mercenary and 
infidel age, being unable to see and reach the divine 
forehead of this missionary spirit, that loftiest shape 
of soul, cannot do otherwise than come to-day and 
whisper our words of homage at her feet.— 7ruths for 


To-day, Dp. 191, 192, 19}. 


XI 


BLAIKIE’S ‘‘PERSONAL LIFE OF DAVID 
LIVINGSTONE’’—A STUDY OF NINE- 
TEENTH-CENTURY HEROISM 


From the beginning of time man has been 
a lover of bravery and a worshiper of heroes. 
Tales of eloquence are interesting, but 
stories of courage have always seemed the 
most fascinating books in libraries. For 
the most part the heroes of liberty, phil- 
anthropy, and religion have gone through 
life in a garb of self-sacrifice and modesty, 
but once the hero is fully revealed society 
hastens to break its alabaster box upon 
his forehead and bathes his feet with ad- 
miring tears. Of old, men traced Czsar’s 
march through Gaul by the villages he de- 
stroyed and the fields he devastated; but we 
trace the heroes’ progress through the cen- 
turies by the wastes that have become gar- 
dens and the deserts that now are Edens. 
Indeed, the history of society is very 
largely the history of a handful of heroes, 

279 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


who have died perhaps in the desert or on 
the battlefield, but who in dying bequeathed 
a republic to followers who had been serfs 
or slaves. 

If we call the roll of all the great achieve- 
ments for mankind, the extinction of gladi- 
atorial games, the trial of witnesses by fire 
prohibited, the bonds of serfs broken, the 
exposure of children forbidden, the doing 
away with the wrecker’s rights, we shall find 
that each new victory for our race begins 
with some valiant leader who died for his 
book of reform or philanthropy. But such 
is the hero’s power that his spirit cannot be 
holden, even of death itself. Standing in 
the clouds of heaven, the ascended poet or 
leader, soldier or saint, rains down inspira- 
tion upon the multitude, and soon lifts the 
whole people to his level. Once death 
clears the clouds from some great soul 
named Socrates or Savonarola, Luther or 
Livingstone, the people follow after his ex- 
ample, as once the Roman multitude fol- 
lowed the chariot of some conqueror. Man 
does well to worship his heroes, for these 
are they who have lifted the gates of the 
prisons from their hinges, broken the 


a 
ony 
aw 


David Livingstone 


swords of tyrants, and led the pilgrim hosts 
into ‘‘the promised land’’ of learning and 
liberty. 

To our pleasure-loving generation comes 
the career of David Livingstone, telling us 
that the age of heroism has not ended and 
must not end. If for the countless millions 
of the Dark Continent Livingstone’s legend 
has become a ‘‘pillar of cloud by day and a 
pillar of fire by night,’’ leading them out of 
the bondage and the wilderness, his influ- 
ence upon civilized nations has been scarcely 
less, rebuking our ease and smiting self-in- 
dulgence. For courage in Livingstone was 
as high and fine as in Sir Galahad of old. 
Heroism was in his blood like iron, in his 
eye like fire, in his voice like the trum- 
pet call. This man, who flung himself upon 
the African slave traffic, and single-handed 
determined to give a continent to commerce 
and Christianity—tthis scarred hero differs 
from our perfumed effeminates as an iron- 
clad differs from a pleasure yacht, as a 
piece of iron from a painted lath, as Crom- 
well differs from some Beau Brummell. 
History holds no career so strangely 
marked by heroic adventure and hairbreadth 

281 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


escapes, perils in jungle and perils in swamp, 
perils of the lion’s stroke and the serpeni’s 
bite, perils of war-clubs and poisoned ar- 
rows, perils of dwarfs in forests and strong 
men in the hill country. In 1842, when 
Livingstone first landed upon the African 
coast and determined to penetrate the very 
heart of the Dark Continent, Africa was 
the land of horrors and of mystery, known 
only to the traders who penetrated the 
edge of the forest to trap slaves for Cuban 
plantations. Since then no other con- 
tinent has experienced changes so wide- 
reaching as this country, now known as the 
land of gold and gems, the land of ivory, 
pearls, and perfumes, the land of amber, 
spices, and rich woods, the land of the 
black races, where God has chiseled His 
‘“image in ebony.’’ 

To-day, obedient to Livingstone’s call for 
staying the ravages of the slave traffic, 
Europe is carving Africa into free states. 
Explorers are perfecting their maps of rivers, 
mountains, and plains. Merchants are 
traversing the country with roads and rail- 
ways. Statesmen are enacting laws that 
shall abolish the last vestige of the traffic in 

282 


David Livingstone 


men. The tragedy of Gordon at Khartoum, 
the intrepid explorations of Stanley, the 
fame of gold fields of the Cape and diamond 
fields of Kimberley, have made the whole 
world aware of the marvels of this rich con- 
tinent. If the nineteenth century has made 
the black slave a free man, the twentieth 
century bids fair to make the Dark Conti- 
nent the land of light and liberty. And 
this wonderland is practically Livingstone’s 
gift to civilization. His twenty-nine thou- 
sand miles of discovery and exploration 
added one million square miles to the known 
world. His studies of Africa’s geology, 
botany, and zodlogy won for him the high- 
est honors that scientific societies could 
bestow. His writings upon African flora 
and fauna won for him the esteem of the 
world’s then greatest scientists, like Owen, 
Murchison, and Herschel. His studies of 
the African languages lent him fame among 
philologists. With Sir Bartle Frere let us 
confess that in ages to come he will be known 
as a hero—one of the bravest men in his- 
tory, being to the Dark Continent what 
Lincoln was to our own country. 
Fascinating indeed the childhood and 
283 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


youth of this hero, whose character and 
career make it hard to disbelieve in the 
divine origin of the Christianity that molded 
him. . He was of Scotland’s sturdiest stock, 
and was hammered out upon the anvil of 
adversity. The courage and spirit of 
Robert Bruce and his heroic clansmen were 
in this Highland son, and in later years 
showed itself a thousand times in moments 
when he marched into the camp of armed 
warriors, and without a single fear lay down 
to sleep in the midst of these painted 
savages. Not wealth nor ease, leisure nor 
social rank equipped him; adversity chose 
him for her knight. The child of pov- 
erty, at ten years of age he entered the 
factory, where six o'clock in the morning 
found his little fingers guiding the thread, 
and when the evening darkness fell he was 
still standing beside the loom. The first 
half-crown he earned went fora Latin gram- 
mar, which he fastened to the frame of his 
wheel, while between the revolutions he 
snatched a moment for his nouns and verbs. 
At sixteen he finished his Virgil, Horace, 
and Cicero, and best of all had formed those 
habits of patient and accurate research that 
284 


David Livingstone 


long continued made him at last a ripe 
scholar. Taking up the study of history, 
politics, and literature, he became interested 
in the ministry, and made his way to Glas- 
gow, where he hired a garret, cooked his 
oatmeal and studied, made a little tea and . 
studied, went forth to walk, but studied 
ever. Interested in the classics, he laid the 
foundations for his study of the dialects of 
Africa. An eager student of the sciences, 
he fitted himself for his researches in geol- 
ogy, geography, and botany. Later he 
entered the medical college, and studied 
surgery, achieving the skill that made him 
seem to the Africans a divine healer. Then 
he went up to London, and there pursued 
his researches in philosophy, theology, and 
ethics. 

At the moment when he was ordained to 
the ministry the opium war was dragging on 
in China, and he determined to make his 
way to the Celestial kingdom. But in that 
hour he met Moffat, newly arrived ‘from 
Africa, who argued that the Dark Continent 
needed some one who had the courage to 
leave the coast and march straight into the 
interior, where on a clear morning, from a 

285 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


mountain-top, the traveler might see smoke 
rising from a thousand villages in which no 
foreigner had ever stood. But the danger 
of African fever or of death by the natives, 
the danger of sunstroke was so great that 
the board would not assign him to Africa. 
In the hour of his insistence the directors 
gave their consent, but disclaimed all respon- 
sibility for the perilous undertaking. Learn- 
ing that the South African steamer was to 
sail almost immediately, Livingstone hurried 
home to bid his parents farewell. Arriving 
at evening, all night long father and mother 
and son sat talking of the perils and possi- 
bilities of the Dark Continent, and when the 
morning light crept over the hills the son 
read the words, ‘‘Thou shalt not be afraid 
of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that 
flieth by day.’’ Then began the walk to 
Glasgow. On the hilltop hard by, father 
and son looked into each other’s faces for 
the last time. Then Livingstone set his 
face toward the Dark Continent, little 
dreaming that the time would come when 
the Glasgow whose shores he was leaving 
would give him tumultuous welcome home, 
cover him with medals and resolutions, and 
286 


David Livingstone 


bestow the freedom of the city upon her 
most distinguished citizen. | 

If Florence Nightingale speaks of David 
Livingstone as ‘‘the most remarkable man 
of his generation,’’ the events of his early 
career in South Africa seem to fully justify 
the judgment. Landing at the Cape, with 
characteristic courage the young hero 
plunged at once into the forest and secluded 
himself from all but the natives, that he 
might master the language, habits, and 
ideas of the people. At the end of seven 
months he reappeared upon the coast, able 
to converse with African chiefs with perfect 
ease. In his enthusiasm he began collect- 
ing provisions for a tour of a thousand miles 
into the interior. Then for six months he 
marched north toward the heart of Africa. 
But at the moment when scores of un- 
friendly tribes were between him and his 
friends upon the coast, his oxen died, and he 
was obliged to desert his supplies. In that 
hour he packed his luggage and trudged on, 
keeping only his medicines and remedies. 

Entering some village that had never seen 
the face of a white man, he would march 
with erect fearlessness through the ranks of 


On 
207 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


warriors, and with a genial smile and out- 
stretched hand boldly enter the tent of the 
chief. His courageous manner, gentle ad- 
dress, and kindly spirit seemed to cast a spell 
upon all hearts, and he soon received not 
simply protection, but even reverence and 
homage from those whom Boers and Arabs 
called treacherous and wily imps and devils. 
Yet in years not one single article was 
stolen from him, and because his presence 
was a boon to the people he was treated as 
a kind of superior being. His fame began 
as a rainmaker. Assembling the native 
chiefs, he led them to the head of a rich 
valley that had been overtaken by drought, 
and there outlined a plan of irrigation with 
canals and reservoirs. When a year had 
passed—lo, the little valley was a garden of 
beauty and delight. Sending to the coast 
for a dozen tool chests, he taught the peo- 
ple carpentering, the building of houses and 
barns, and the making of wagons. He 
started an agricultural school, and developed 
vineyards and orchards, and taught the 
erafting of fruits, the raising of grains, and 
the care of stock. He enrolled two hun- 
dred women in an industrial school, where 
288 


David Livingstone 


his wife taught dressmaking and housekeep- 
ing, while he taught the use of foods, the 
care of the eyes and ears and the general 
health, with remedies for diseases of child- 
hood. 

When the first Christian missionary landed 
in England in 590, they found our Saxon 
forefathers were cannibals, wearing coats of 
skin, worshiping charms, and eating the 
flesh of enemies slain in battle. But nine 
hundred years of Christian instruction 
ushered in the era of Shakespeare. In like 
manner Livingstone’s ideal was to teach as 
a Christian gentleman with a typical Eng- 
lish home. When seven years had passed 
by he beheld a transformation how mar- 
velous. He built a house, and straightway 
the chief erected a home like it. He filled 
a space in front of his home with flower- 
beds; soon all the tents were surrounded 
with brilliant blossoms. He assembled the 
children and youth on Sunday morning for 
instruction, and the chief sent out servants 
with whips of rhinoceros skin and drove in 
five hundred young men, that Livingstone 
might instruct them. His days were filled 
with husbandry, wagon-making, stock-rais- 
289 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


ing, while his evenings were occupied with 
the instruction of twenty-five young men 
whom he was training to carry on his work. 
It was here, too, that he had his famous 
adventure with the lion, and suffered that 
injury to his arm that made possible the 
identification of his body when his faithful 
Susa brought the bones to London. 

One autumn the cattle suffered severely 
through the midnight attack of lions, and 
Livingstone planned to make a circuit about 
the herd in the hope of driving the wild 
beasts toward the center. In the morning, 
moving through the high grass, he came 
suddenly upon a beast that sprang full upon 
him and brought him to the ground. ‘““‘He 
caught me by the shoulder,’’ writes Living- 
stone, ‘‘and shook me as I have seen a ter- 
rier shake a rat. The shock produced a 
stupor like that produced to a mouse in the 
srip of acat. It caused a sense of dreami- 
ness.’’ He says he was quite conscious of 
all that was happening. ‘“‘It was like a 
patient under the influence of chloroform, 
who is conscious of the operation, but does 
not feel the knife, perhaps a merciful pro- 
vision of the Creator for lessening the pain 

290 


David Livingstone 


of death.’’ A moment later the beast in 
the agony of death dropped the arm, its 
bones crushed, the flesh in shreds. But the 
slave-dealers, who feared him, were more 
cruel than wild beasts. Returning from the 
coast, where he had gone to send his family 
home to England, he found that the Boers 
had sacked the villages, burned all his 
buildings, destroyed his tents and vines, and 
scattered his people. Then it was that he 
determined to launch a crusade against the 
traffic in human flesh, and bring the Portu- 
guese and Spanish slavers before the court 
of the world. 

The wanderings of Ulysses are not more 
fascinating than this epoch of discovery and 
exploration that now began for Livingstone. 
With no guide but his compass, he deter- 
mined to plunge into the interior and cross 
the Dark Continent, hoping to come out 
somewhere near the mouth of the Congo 
River. Warned that this was a forlorn 
hope, he wrote a letter home to England, 
saying: ‘‘I shall open up a path through 
this continent or perish. My blessings on 
my wife. May God comfort her. If I 
never return, my Paris medal goes to 

291 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Thomas, my sextant to Robert.’’ Then, 
having no supporters, like Stanley or Sir 
Samuel Baker, no guides, no maps, no army 
of aids, he plunged into the forest to follow 
the stars and be guided by his compass and — 
astronomical instruments. His baggage, 
carried by natives, consisted of twenty _ 
pounds of coffee and a like amount of tea. 
For his food he depended upon his gun and 
three muskets for natives. He also had 
three tin boxes, each fifteen inches square, 
one filled with beads, one with clothing, 
and one with medicines. To this scant 
equipment he added a tent, which was just 
large enough to shield him from the rain 
when lying down. The perils that he en- 
dured during the five years in the wilderness 
well-nigh surpass belief. He found the vast 
tropic jungle one tangled maze well-nigh 
impenetrable, with trees one hundred and 
fifty feet high, shutting out the sun by day 
and making the darkness by night well-nigh 
palpable. The rich and reeking soil sent 
up an undergrowth of thorns and briers that 
tore the flesh, while stinging nettles were 
often waist-deep. Rain also fell every other 
day for months, and he scarcely knew what 


292 


David Livingstone 


it was to have dry feet or garments. He 
waded and swam hundreds of streams and 
rivers. Once, tying logs together for a raft, 
a hippopotamus attacked it and threw Liv- 
ingstone into the river. Lying down to 
sleep, a lion sprang upon two of his men 
and slew them. He was bitten by serpents, 
and twice his life hung in the balance. 

Once mistaken for a slave-driver, he came 
near having his brains beaten out with war- 
clubs. Another time he found himself 
alone in the midst of a mob of armed sav- 
ages. Amusing them with his watch, com- 
pass, and sextant, he backed to the river 
bank, got into a log canoe that he had made, 
and holding up his magic lantern for them 
to look at got across the stream and found 
his men again. He traveled for three hun- 
dred miles through a swampy region, where 
the marsh gases threatened his life. In two 
years he suffered twenty-seven attacks of 
African fever, lasting from one to three 
weeks. The result was that during the last 
three hundred miles of his journey he was 
so dizzy that he could not hold his instru- 
ment steady nor perform a single calcula- 
tion, nor tell the time of day nor the day of 


293 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


the week. At last his faithful men tied 
him upon an ox that they led slowly forward. 
When Xenophon’s soldiers, in the retreat 
of the Ten Thousand, saw the sea, they joy- 
fully exclaimed: ‘‘The sea! The sea!’’ 
But when Livingstone’s servants emerged 
from the dark forest the traveler was scarcely 
conscious enough to understand the scene, 
and his faithful men having never seen the 
ocean, knelt about him in their alarm and 
said, ‘“‘The world says, ‘I am finished. 
There is no more of me.’’’ Worn toa 
skeleton, scarcely able to understand his 
deliverance, for weeks Livingstone lay in 
the home of the consul, battling with the 
African fever and struggling back to life. 
Then he set himself to the task of com- 
pleting his maps and charts containing the 
notes as to the width and depth of rivers 
and streams, the direction of their flow, 
and the country they drained; accounts of 
the forests, the various woods and grains, 
and also perfected his geological, botanical, 
and zodlogical notes. When his task was 
nearing completion an English steamer 
anchored near shore, and the captain offered 
Livingstone passage home, where friends 
294 


David Livingstone 


and fame awaited him. But Livingstone 
had promised his natives that if they would © 
be true to him he would return them to 
their friends in safety. And so, putting 
away all thoughts of home and love, he 
turned back again for a journey of two thou- 
sand miles straight across Africa from west 
to east, being destined to discover the Vic- 
toria Falls, and to undergo sufferings and 
adventures such as have characterized the 
career of no discoverer in history. Having 
brought his servants home again, he jour- 
neyed on to Juimaline, where he arrived in 
August, 1857, after five years of solitude in 
the forests, and so set sail for home, where 
he was destined to find himself the most 
famous man then in the British Isles. 

A modest man and reticent, Livingstone’s 
welcome home brought surprise that was 
bewilderment. The Royal Geographical 
Society received him, and in its name Sir 
Robert Murchison presented him with a gold 
medal. London hastened to do him honor, 
and assembling its statesmen, lords, sci- 
entists, merchants, the lord mayor presented 
him with the freedom of thecity. Glasgow 
welcomed him home witha public recep- 

295 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


tion, and her dignitaries presented Living- 
stone with an address and a gold box 
containing ten thousand dollars in coin. 
Edinburgh, Liverpool, Dublin, Manchester, 
and a score of other cities and towns voted 
him public honors and rich gifts. The uni- 
versities of Oxford and Cambridge bestowed 
honorary degrees, as did Dublin, Glasgow, 
and Paris. Addressing the Commercial 
Club of London, he exhibited to her mer- 
chants and manufacturers specimens of 
twenty-five kinds of dried fruits, showed 
them oils of which they had never heard, 
native dyes hitherto unknown, fibers for 
making paper, told them of sheep that had 
hair instead of wool, exhibited specimens of 
African honey, sugar-cane, millet, wheat, 
cotton, iron, and coal. He insisted that it’ 
was of capital importance to England to 
open up a railway into what we now know 
as the Lake Nyassa region, where to-day 
England is building a railway one thousand 
miles long. 

Indeed, Livingstone was the lion of the 
year, and his popularity was such as to 
eclipse the fame of England’s greatest lead- 
ers. But this modest traveler, naturalist, 

296 


David Livingstone 


scientist, physician, missionary, soon with- 
drew from public life, and secluding himself 
in the old home in Scotland, wrote out his 
‘Missionary Travels,’’ in the hope of secur- 
ing funds for another expedition. ‘‘For,’’ 
said he, in the outset of his book, ‘‘so far 
as my calling is concerned, the end of the 
geographical feat is only the beginning of my 
missionary enterprise.’ For having se- 
cured a knowledge of the country and free- 
dom for the body of slaves, his Christian 
spirit rushed on to include Christ’s freedom 
for the mind and heart. The first edition 
of twelve thousand volumes of his book was 
sold for one guinea, and was taken within a 
single week. Finding the amount sufficient 
to provide for his new expedition, he imme- 
diately set sail for Africa, unspoiled by 
honors such as England has bestowed upon 
but two or three men of this century. 
Landing at Zanzibar, he went immediately 
into the interior, and made a circle of a 
thousand miles, collecting facts that secured 
governmental interference with the Portu- 
guese slave traffic, discovering and exploring 
the sources of the River Zambesi, Lake 
Nyassa, and finding the key to the river 
297 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


system that explained the headwaters of 
the Nile. Upon his return to the coast he 
found his wife ill with African fever, uncon- 
scious, and dying. Three months later an 
expedition arrived from the coast, and its 
leader found that the hero who had faced so 
many dangers, braved so many deaths, had 
at last lost all heart and hope, for he had 
buried his life with Mary Livingstone at the 
foot of a great babbah tree. When another 
broken and sad year had passed in travel, 
he determined to return to England, pub- 
lish the record of his five years of travel, sell 
the manuscript, arrange for his sons’ future, 
and set sail for Africa, to make one last 
attempt to discover the headwaters of the 
Nile. 

Within a year after his return to Africa 
Livingstone was a thousand miles in the 
interior, in the midst of tribes that had 
never seen a white face. Twenty-five years 
of exposure and privation had sorely taxed 
his strength, but he adhered unflinchingly 
to his determination to make a desperate 
effort to get at the centers of the slave 
trade, collect information sufficient to justify 
a congress of the powers for concerted 

298 


David Livingstone 


action against the trafficin men, and also, if 
possible, discover the sources of the Nile. 
When Christmas Day of 1867 came he was 
so weak as to be reduced to a diet of milk, 
and on New Year’s day his goats were 
stolen and his one luxury gone. ‘‘Took up 
my belt three holes to relieve hunger,’’ was 
his entry New Year’s day of 1868. Then 
for three months, ill with rheumatic fever, 
he lay in a rude hut that his men built for 
him. One day he saw the wild bees enter- 
ing a hollow tree, and writes: ‘‘It is now 
two years since I have tasted sugar or 
honey.’’ Traveling slowly through the for- 
est he came across a little mound beneath a 
great tree, and musing there, writes: ‘‘I 
have nothing to do but to trudge on, until 
He who has brought me safe thus far bids 
me lie down beneath His trees to die.’’ 
The following year he discovered and ex- 
plored Lake Noero and Lake Bankweolo, 
and from the formation of the country de- 
veloped the theory that in the great lakes 
of the north, of which the natives had told 
him, he would find the headwaters of the 
Nile—a theory that later proved to be true. 
**Tf I have life,’’ writes the old hero, ‘‘I will 
299 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


yet make sure of it.’’ Then he renewed 
his travels northward, trudging slowly, for 
he was weary in mind and body. Unfor- 
tunately he was doomed to suffer through 
the treachery of the slave-dealers. Return- 
ing to the village where two years before he 
had left his supplies, he found that all his 
stores had been destroyed, not even one 
dose of quinine remaining. It was in No- 
vember of 1871, while striving to collect 
himself from the shock of finding that he 
was without money, beads, calico, or goods 
to hire the men for completing his work, 
that his faithful Susa came crying: ‘‘ Master, 
a white man comes.’’ A moment later, 
leaning on his staff for very weakness, Liv- 
ingstone grasped the hand of Stanley, who 
had been sent by the New York Herald to 
find Livingstone if living, and if dead to 
bring home his bones. That night his jour- 
nal includes these words: ‘‘The news I have 
heard from Europe makes my whole frame 
thrill. What a terrible fate has befallen 
France at Sedan. The ocean cable success- 
fully laid in the Atlantic, the election of 
General Grant as President, the death of 
Lord Clarendon, the voting of a thousand 


300 


David Livingstone 


pounds by Parliament for supplies to help 
my work has put new life into me.’’ For 
four months these two men wrought to- 
gether, the one a veteran who had borne the 
burden and heat of the day, the other a 
young knight who had but just won his 
golden spurs. One fact was certain, the 
atmosphere of Livingstone transformed the 
spirit, ambition, motives, and character of 
Stanley. 

The young traveler at length came to look 
upon Livingstone as one who deserved 
homage and worship. What a portrait is 
that he paints of Livingstone! ‘‘ His gen- 
tleness never forsakes him, his hopefulness 
never deserts. No harassing anxieties can 
make him complain. To the stern dictates 
of duty alone has he sacrificed home and 
ease, the pleasures, refinements, and lux- 
uries of civilized life. His is the Spartan 
heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the 
enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon— 
never to surrender his obligations until he 
can write ‘finis’ to his work. His religion 
has made him the most companionable of 
men and indulgent of masters. Each Sun- 
day morning he gathers his little flock about 


301 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


him and reads prayers and a chapter from 
the Bible, and delivers a short address in a 
natural, unaffected, and sincere tone. The 
natives passing Livingstone exclaim, ‘The 
blessing of God rest on you.’’’ Despite 
every argument that Stanley could use for 
Livingstone to return home, the hero 
refused to give up his unfulfilled purpose. 
Stanley urged the claims of home and 
friends, what a reception awaited him in 
England and America, what cheers from 
great societies and savants, what opportu- 
nity to establish missions and commerce and 
suppress the slave traffic! One morning at 
four o'clock David Livingstone arose and 
gave into Stanley’s hands his journal, maps, 
charts, and notes that made the interior of 
Africa a known country, and with the single 
word ‘‘God bless you,’’ the quiet, reserved 
missionary of Jesus Christ turned back to- 
ward the forest, while Stanley went away 
to end his record of travel with the words: 
“For four months and four days I lived with 
Livingstone, and I never found a fault in 
him. Each day’s life only added to my 
admiration.’’ 

Pathetic indeed the events of the few 

302 


David Livingstone 


months after the departure of Stanley. For 
several months Livingstone toiled on, racked 
with unspeakable pain, able to take nothing 
except goat’s milk. It was the rainy sea- 
son, and he was worn with fever and rheu- 
matism; yet each day he traveled a few 
miles down the river bank, exploring on 
every side for indications of a slope toward 
the north. In April he writes: ‘‘I am very 
weak from bleeding through a vein that 
keeps breaking and saps away my strength.’’ 
Too weak to use his instruments after the 
day’s march, his men now carried him for- 
ward on a litter, for he was determined to 
press on. One afternoon he bade the men 
camp early, and seemed to be wandering in 
his mind. Midst the drizzling rain a rude 
hut was hastily constructed. In the night 
the boy who lay at the door of the tent 
called for Susa, saying that the master was 
ill and so still that he was afraid. Entering 
the tent they found Livingstone kneeling, 
his head buried in his hands upon the pil- 
low. He had gone on his last long journey, 
and no man was with him. But he had 
died praying for Africa—for Africa and all 
her woes and sins and wrongs, to the 


323 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


Avenger of the oppressed and the Re- 
deemer of the lost. In his journal were 
these words: ‘‘All I can say in my solitude 
is, may Heaven’s rich blessing come down 
on every one—American, English, Turk— 
who will help to heal this open sore of the 
world.’’ 

Could Livingstone have known of the 
courage, affection, and loyalty that his black 
servants were to manifest after his death, 
that knowledge alone would have repaid him 
for thirty years in the African wastes. 
With instant resolution, his faithful friends 
determined to carry his body and his books 
to England. They buried the heart at the 
base of a great tree, on which they carved 
his name. Having dried the body in the 
sun, they wrapped it in calico, and started 
to the coast. It was a journey of nine 
months through unfriendly tribes and an 
unknown region, midst dangers that con- 
quered the admiration of the world. In the 
retreat of the Ten Thousand, the Greek sol- 
diers marched home, and were encouraged 
by the love and welcome of men who were 
living. Xenophon’s men also were Greeks— 
soldiers, armed and educated. But these 


304 


David Livingstone 


negroes had been slaves, their Livingstone 
was dead, and they endured innumerable 
dangers without any hope of reward. From 
Zanzibar his bones, still guarded by his 
faithful Susa, were sent to England, where 
they were met by a special train. Sir Wil- 
liam Ferguson identified the body immedi- 
ately by the false joint in the arm. The 
heart of all England swelled with grief and 
pride over one of her noblest sons. In the 
presence of an immense concourse, Eng- 
land’s greatest scientists, scholars, and citi- 
zens buried him in the center of the nave of 
Westminster Abbey. The black slab that 
marks his resting-place bears this inscrip- 
tion: 

Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, here 
rests David Livingstone, missionary, traveler, philan- 
thropist. For thirty years his life was spent in an 
unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to 
explore the undiscovered secrets, and abolish the 
desolating slave trade of Central Africa. 

And there, too, are these words of his 
Master’s: ‘‘Other sheep I have, which are 
not of this fold, them also I must bring, and 
they shall hear my voice.’’ Oh, loftiest 
spirit of earth! The soul of Livingstone 
surpassing those great ones who toiled for 


395 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


fame and place and honors. Should it ever 
be our good fortune to behold those elect 
heroes, Paul and Savonarola and Luther and 
Lincoln, with all the poets and reformers | 
and philanthropists, perhaps not far from 
Him whose ‘‘name is above every name’’ 
we shall see the scarred hero who lost his 
life to the Dark Continent indeed, but 
whose name glows with the brightness of 
the firmament and shines like the stars for- 
ever and ever. 


306 


XII 


The Christian Scholar in Politics —A 
Study of the Life of William Ewart 
Gladstone 


Look at the great modern statesmen who have 
shaped the politics of the world. They were educated 
men; were they, therefore, visionary, pedantic, im- 
practicable? Cavour, whose monument is United 
Italy —one from the Alps to Tarentum, from the 
lagoons of Venice to the Gulf of Salerno; Bismarck, 
who has raised the German empire from a name toa 
fact; Gladstone, to-day the incarnate heart and con- 
science of England —they are the perpetual refuta- 
tion of the sneer that high education weakens men 
for practical affairs. Trained themselves, such men 
know the value of training. All countries, all ages, 
all men, are their teachers. The broader their edu- 
cation, the wider the horizon of their thought and ob- 
servation; the more affluent their resources, the more 
humane their policy. Would Samuel Adams have 
been a truer popular leader had he been less an edu- 
cated man? Would Walpole the less truly have 
served his country had he been, with all his capaci- 
ties, a man whom England could have revered and 
loved? Could Gladstone so sway England with his 
fervent eloquence, as the moon the tides, were he a 
gambling, swearing, boozing squire like Walpole? 
There is no sophistry more poisonous to the State, no 
folly more stupendous and demoralizing, than the 
notion that the purest character and the highest edu- 
cation are incompatible with the most commanding 
mastery of men and the most efficient administration 
of affairs—Ovrations and Addresses (George William 
Curtis), Vol. I, Dp. 277, 272. 


XII 


THE CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR IN POLITICS—A 
STUDY OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM EWART 
GLADSTONE 


The year 1809 was a memorable year for 
America and England. It saw the birth of 
Abraham Lincoln, the greatest of emanci- 
pators; of Charles Darwin, the greatest sci- 
entist since Isaac Newton; of William Ewart 
Gladstone, the greatest statesman of the 
Victorian era.. When Edmund Burke died 
in 1797 Canning wrote: “There is but one 
event, but it is an event of the world: 
Burke is dead.’’ And now that Gladstone 
hath passed from the strife of politics to 
where beyond these voices there is rest and 
peace, England and America have but one 
heart: that heart is very sore. For this 
man, who reverenced his conscience as his 
king, was also one whose “‘glory was redress- 
ing human wrong.’’ At once the child of 


genius, wealth, and power, this young pa- 


*Gladstone, The Man and His Work, by Frank W. Gunsaulus, 
Life of Gladstone, by Justin McCarthy. 


399 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


trician took as his clients, not the rich and 
great, but the poor and weak. Oft through 
voice and pen did he plead the cause of the 
oppressed in Italy and Ireland, in Bulgaria 
and Armenia. Countless reformers and 
philanthropists there are in this and foreign 
lands who in hours of discouragement com- 
forted themselves with the thought that this 
knight-errant of the poor was in Hawarden, 
and felt that our world was a little safer be- 
cause the ‘‘great commoner’’ was there. 
‘‘Death bringeth good fame,’’ said Bacon; 
but his splendid talents, his pure purpose 
and blameless deeds, brought Mr. Gladstone 
good fame in a life that was singularly 
happy and glorious. Refusing the offer of 
a title and a seat in the House of Lords, 
he chose to live and die as plain Mr. Glad- 
stone. ‘‘Posterity,’’ wrote Macaulay, ““has 
obstinately refused to degrade Francis 
Bacon into Viscount St. Albans.’’ And if 
Mr. Gladstone had no rank as earl or duke, 
he stood forth regal with a royalty beyond 
that of kings. Recently England cele- 
brated the diamond jubilee of Queen Vic- 
toria, but in that stately and _ brilliant 
pageant Mr. Gladstone was a figure clothed 
310 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


with a fascination beyond that of the great- 
est of England’s queens. Even those who 
were his political opponents affirm that 
whatever is high-minded, pure, and disin- 
terested in patriots must henceforth be 
identified with his immortal tradition, while 
whatever is base, selfish, or sinister in 
national policy is rebuked by the lustre of 
his life. 

Standing upon the summit of the Alpine 
mountain, the traveler looks into sunny 
Italy or the German forests, toward the 
vineyards of France or the far-off plains 
of Austria. And Mr. Gladstone stands forth 
like some sun-crowned mountain-peak, su- 
premely great in every side of his char- 
acter and career. He was a scholar, and 
with Homer lingered long before the gates 
of Troy, or with Pericles and Plato saun- 
tered through the groves of Athens. He 
was an author, and the mere titles of his 
speeches and books fill twenty pages in the 
catalogue of libraries. He was an orator, 
and his eloquence was such that oft it 
seemed to his rapt listeners as if Apollo 
had come again—the music of the morning 
breathing from his lips. He was a states- 

311 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


man, and the reforms he proposed and 
the laws he created are milestones measur- 
ing the progress of the English people. 
Above all, he was a Christian gentle- 
man, for religion goes with the name of 
Gladstone as poetry with the name of Burns 
or Browning, as war with Wellington or 
Washington. 

Going away, he has left behind men of 
acute intellect, brave heart, and eloquent 
tongue. But having praised the statesmen 
who remain, let us confess that there has 
been but one who could first conquer and 
then reconcile; but one who could oppose 
the policy and principles for which he 
once stood and still retain the confidence 
of those whom he had come to antagonize. 
Like Cromwell, he had a heart of oak and 
hand of iron; he had the ardor and the 
integrity of Hampden; he had the elo- 
quence and chivalry of Vane; like Lord 
Lawrence, he ‘‘feared man so little because 
he feared God so much’’; like Washington, 
he had sanity and moderation. In stormy 
epochs it might have been said of him, 
‘“All the world was shaken, but not the 
intellect of Gladstone.’’ Remembering his 


312 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


character and career, England feels that 
Westminster Abbey alone is worthy to con- 
tain his remains. United in sorrow, the 
statesmen who followed and those who 
opposed Gladstone clasped hands and bore 
his sacred dust into the ‘‘temple of silence 
and reconciliation,’’ where the enmities of 
twenty centuries lie buried. 

In his fascinating studies of Homer and 
the Trojan era, Mr. Gladstone dwells upon 
the character of Jupiter and Minerva, oft 
descending into the tents of warriors to heal 
their strifes and bickerings, to encourage 
the defeated hosts, and lead them on to vic- 
tory. As we watch these divine beings 
leaving the Olympian heights to enter the 
earthly scene, one thinks instinctively of 
Gladstone himself, towering shoulders high 
above all his fellows, his great, beautiful 
head telling us that he, too, is of ‘Olympus 
and Olympian.’’ Beside other great states- 
men of his century he stands forth clothed 
with power and majesty as with a garment. 

If we call the roll of the great orators and 
advocates with whom he was associated for 
five and sixty years, long is the list and 
splendid the names. When Gladstone en- 


313 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


tered Parliament Sir Robert Peel was there, 
his thoughts logic, his atmosphere grace and 
strength, his speech aglow with wit and 
humor, his presence dignity, his voice 
honey. O’Connell was there, with genius to 
awe the multitude, with pathos to melt the 
coldest statesman, whom Wendell Phillips 
called ‘‘God’s anointed king, whose single 
word melts all wills into his.’’ Beside 
O’Connell, with his passion for philan- 
thropy, stood Brougham, a square of rough- 
hewn granite, conquering men by sheer 
weight of mentality, great as advocate, agi- 
tator, and orator. Nor must Palmerston be 
forgotten, the proud and stately statesman, 
distinguished as foreign secretary, who had 
taken the affairs of all foreign nations as his 
department, as Bacon once took “‘all knowl- 
edge as his province.’’ There, too, was 
Macaulay the essayist, and Grote the his- 
torian, and Bulwer the novelist, and Cob- 
den the friend of the common people, the 
corn-law agitator, whose power was sincer- 
ity, whose character exhaled sweetness and 
simplicity, whose influence, once the ‘‘corn 
laws’’ were repealed, was for a time well- 
nigh supreme. 


314 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


Another close friend of Mr. Gladstone was 
John Bright, the Quaker orator, who had 
modeled his speech upon the simple Saxon 
of the Bible and John Bunyan, a man of 
superb physique and marvelous voice, with 
a certain gift of humor and an eloquence 
that, while restrained, yet burned at white 
heat; Disraeli, whose pastime was novel- 
writing, whose idol was politics, with a will 
of iron and conscience of india-rubber, with 
a genius for sarcasm, who could open the 
gates of speech and pour forth a flood of 
vitriolic acid. In later years, also, Mr. 
Gladstone had his opponents. Among 
these was Lord Randolph Churchill, with 
his passion for invective, from whom Eng- 
land hoped so much, but who for want of 
moral purpose achieved so little; Mr. Bal- 
four, the metaphysician, boasting that he 
never read a newspaper, writing on psycho- 
logical problems, whose “‘light reading be- 
fore breakfast is Plato and Aristotle,’’ the 
most charming of opponents, with an easy, 
contemptuous smile at the moment when he 
sheathes his sword in the bowels of his 
opponent. Another rival was Lord Salis- 
bury, who, with all the responsibility of the 

315 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


prime ministry, has found time to be presi- 
dent of the British Society for the Advance- 
ment of Scientific Research, an original 
investigator in the problems of electricity, 
whose arguments for theism from the view- 
point of science have been so highly praised 
—a statesman admired for his comprehen- 
sive knowledge, solidity, and cautious judg- 
ment, a man who has made all England 
to be his debtor. When we call the roll of 
the great men with whom Gladstone was 
associated, we see that this has been indeed 
an age of giants. Mr. Gladstone had his 
faults, and made mistakes that were not few, 
but in amplitude of faculty, fertility of 
resource, in the richness and variety of his 
gifts and achievements, he stands forth 
easily the first statesman of the Victorian 
era. 

Renowned as orator and author, as phil- 
anthropist and Christian reformer, his an- 
cestry accounts only in a degree for Mr. 
Gladstone’s greatness. For the most part 
his genius, like God’s throne, is wrapt in 
clouds and mystery. Through a long line 
of noble forefathers, nature and providence 
began to make ready for the giant two hun- 

316 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


dred years before the child was born. For 
in the noblest sense this patrician gentle- 
man represents breeding—high, pure, and 
long. In 1620 there was a Gladstone who 
was a God-fearing and law-loving man, 
famed for his goodly stature. This man 
had a son who climbed upon his father’s 
shoulders; then his son climbed upon his 
shoulders, and so on, until at last, upon the 
shoulders of Sir John Gladstone there 
climbed this youth, whose forehead struck 
against the stars. From the moment when 
the beautiful boy first enters the scene he 
interprets the old Roman idea of a gentle- 
man as ‘‘amanof purestock.’’ To goodly 
stature he added that fineness of bone and 
nerve that makes possible the most delicate 
physical sensations, as opposed to that ele- 
phantine coarseness that goes with vulgar 
physical habits. He also had fineness of 
intellect, being as delicately organized as 
an A‘olian harp, that makes the mind sensi- 
’ tive to every truth that came through color, 
form, or music. He had the fineness of 
heart that made him sympathetic to anoth- 
er’s woe; for sympathy is the very first 
characteristic of one who is well bred, since 
317 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


each ‘‘ Achilles, who in the hour of battle 
can bear himself like iron, has a hand that 
can feel the fall of a rose petal.’’ He also 
had that fineness of conscience that made 
him sensitive to every shade of untruth, as 
opposed to that coarseness of nature that 
made a vulgar falsehood easily possible to 
such a nature as Fox or Disraeli. 

He who has scrutinized the face and form 
of Mr. Gladstone as he once stood or sat in 
his accustomed place in the House, or has 
studied Millais’s famous portrait, must have 
noticed characteristics that are strikingly 
Scotch. For Gladstone was an Englishman 
only by birth, in that his father exchanged 
Leith for Liverpool, where in the shipping 
interests he achieved his fame and title as 
Sir John Gladstone. In his address to his 
constituents in Midlothian, the prime min- 
ister expressed his pride in the fact that 
every drop of blood in his veins was pure 
Scotch. The Highlanders are men of large 
stature, brave and brawny, and the iron ~ 
and granite of the Highland mountains 
found their way into the physique of this 
hero. The Scotsman is thrifty, and has a 
genius for saving and investing his pennies. 

318 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


It was a Scotsman who went to Lombard 
Street and founded the Bank of England. 
It was a Scotsman who went to the Avenue 
in Paris and founded the Bank of France. 
And Mr. Gladstone came naturally by his 
genius for finance, that made his fame as 
chancellor of the exchequer. In his study 
of Jennie Deans, Scott makes her tell the 
truth, even though it threatens her sister’s 
life. And Gladstone also hated every form 
of lying, and was frank to the point of 
rudest bluntness. Every Scotsman cher- 
ishes the secret belief that he knows all 
about God. And true to the national char- 
acteristic, Mr. Gladstone explored the 
nooks and corners of every known theologi- 
cal system. The Scotsman also believes in 
education, and so when the child was thir- 
teen years of age he appeared at Eton— 
‘“‘the handsomest boy,’’ said the famous 
naturalist Murchison, ‘‘that ever entered the 
historical school,’’ as later on men said that 
Gladstone was ‘‘the handsomest old man 
who ever appeared in Parliament,’’ age never 
having dimmed the fire of his eyes. 

To all his other gifts nature added a 
genius for friendship. In Eton College his 

319 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


dearest friend was Arthur Hallam, whose 
gifts, virtues, and untimely death Tennyson 
laments in the noblest poem of this century, 
‘‘In Memoriam.’’ Among his close friends 
at Oxford were Tennyson, Canning, Mau- 
rice, Lowe, and that youth who was to 
be known as Cardinal Manning. ‘‘No 
man,’’ said Bishop Wordsworth, ‘‘ever 
heard Gladstone speak in his student days 
at Oxford who did not feel that he would 
rise to be prime minister of England.’’ An 
indomitable physical constitution, a power- 
ful reason, a perfect memory, an intuitive 
knowledge of men, rare common sense, 
imagination, moral enthusiasm, sincerity, 
earnestness, wealth, ‘social position — all 
these stars glow in the constellation of his 
genius. Nature and providence denied no 
talent that could aid him in achieving a 
great career. 

Reviewing this illustrious life, we see 
that the genius of Gladstone’s life was the 
genius of patriotism. The child of leisure, 
relinquishing long-cherished plans for the 
pulpit through the pressure of his father’s 
iron will, he determined to enter Parliament, 
and bring to the questions of practical legis- 

320 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


lation the patient study, the wide research, 
the trained faculties that Isaac Newton 
brought to his work in astronomy, and 
Bacon to his work in philosophy, and Gib- 
bon to his work in history. Believing in 
the leadership of educated men, he outlined 
his career as that of a scholar in politics. 
He felt that every sneer at the scholar is the 
sneer of the demagogue, plotting some form 
of treason against the state. He knew that 
the foundations of law and jurisprudence go 
back to a scholar named Moses. He knew 
that the golden age of Athens was ushered 
in by ascholar named Pericles. He knew 
that Florence and Venice and Oxford and 
London had their foundations in wisdom 
and knowledge; and that from the day 
‘“‘when Themistocles led the educated 
Athenians at Salamis to that when Von 
Moltke marshaled the educated Germans 
against France, the foundations of states are 
not laid in ignorance.’’ Emulating the 
Puritan poet Milton, Gladstone the student 
seems to have looked forward to the time 
when he might enter the arena of Parlia- 
ment to attack selfish rulers, class privileges, 
and ancient abuses. Certainly, had he fore- 
321 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


seen the day when he should stand forth in 
deadly conflict with leaders of wrong against 
humanity, he could scarcely have prepared 
himself more carefully. 

Leaving the lecture-halls and libraries at 
Oxford, the eager youth remembered that 
he lived in an historic land, hallowed by the 
life and death of patriots, poets, heroes. 
A pilgrim to England’s sacred shrines, one 
day he turned his steps toward Runnymede, 
where brave barons wrested ‘‘the great 
charter’’ from an ignoble king. He made 
his way to Hampton Court, and mused 
upon Wesley’s vast ambition. He turned 
his steps toward the House of Parliament, 
and in imagination heard Burke close his 
immortal speech against Hastings. He 
sought out John Milton’s tomb, and read 
again the scholar’s plea for the freedom of 
the press. He entered the great abbey, 
and standing beside the memorials of Eng- 
land’s greatest statesmen, he recalled famous 
men of old—kings, counselors, patriots 
prodigal of their blood, just men by whom 
impartial laws were given; and standing 
there, the genius of the abbey whispered to 
him that only the ripest training, the purest 


339 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


purpose, the holiest life, could make him a 
fit instrument for serving the cause of law 
and liberty. 

Entering Parliament, he began his studies 
in the history of liberty, and traced the rise 
of democracy and free institutions. He 
studied the ideal commonwealths, the laws 
of Moses, the Republic of Plato, the City of 
God, by Augustine, Moore’s Utopia. He 
made a comparative study of the great epics, 
the Iliad, the A®neid, the Inferno, the 
poems of Shakespeare and Milton. With 
the enthusiasm of an enraptured admirer 
he wrote his book, “‘Juventus Mundi,’’ 
redeeming himself out of drudgery by wan- 
dering far with Homer in that time ‘‘when 
all the world was young.’’ During the 
evenings of one session of Parliament he 
read the works of Augustine in twenty-two 
volumes. For recreation he studied old 
china, rare books and bindings, mosaics, 
colored glass, rugs and tapestries, the great- 
est paintings of history. Very early in his 
career he developed the theory that the 
scholar can best rest his brain by change of 
occupation. Therefore in his library he had 
three tables, studying at one the problems 

3273 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of politics, at another the problems of reli- 
gion, and at a third the problems of litera- 
ture. An eager, tireless, indefatigable stu- 
dent for eighty-one years, he left a library 
of twenty-five thousand .volumes— books 
filled with his notes, markings, references, 
and impressions of the author. 

Old age itself could not dull the ardor of 
his enthusiasm asa student. His first book 
upon ‘‘Church and State’’ made a great sen- 
sation, as did his last, written fifty years 
later. At eighty-four he published the 
translations of the poems of Horace. At 
eighty-five he entered the realm of apolo- 
getics, and wrote ‘‘The Impregnable Rock 
of Holy Scriptures.’’ At eighty-six he pub- 
lished a reprint of Butler’s Analogy, with 
copious notes and comments. His intellec- 
tual faculty is one of the marvels of history. 
When other men retire from actual life their 
intellectual faculties seem to wane, like 
those Western rivers that begin with full 
banks, but finally sink away in the sand be- 
fore the life course is half run. But Mr. 
Gladstone’s life was like a mountain-fed 
stream, that runs full-breasted to the sea, 
broadening and deepening up to the very 

324 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


moment that it disappears in the vast ocean 
that lies beyond. 

As a scholar and author his crowning 
characteristic was his intellectual hospitality. 
At eighty years of age, mentally he was still 
srowing with the rapidity of a boy. His 
rule was to take up at least one new subject 
every three months. Therefore his life 
increased in freshness and zest as it ad- 
vanced in years. For him life’s best wine 
was reserved for the last of the feast. The 
most fascinating period of Gladstone’s career 
was between the years named—seventy and 
eighty-five. With biting sarcasm Disraeli 
once taunted him with being inconsistent, 
affirming that no man knew to-day what 
Gladstone would think or say to-morrow. 
He began, indeed, as a Tory, but ended as 
a Radical. During his long career his polit- 
ical views passed through many changes, 
but these changes represent, not fickleness, 
but the evolution of ascholar. His growth 
was first the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear. One of the tests of © 
greatness is growth. Mediocrity is never | 
mistaken. The two-talent. man cannot 
afford to confess that he was wrong yes- 

325 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


terday. But genius, conscious of infinite 
reserves, can afford to confess its mistakes. 
Now and then a politician declares that he 
believes to-day just what he believed ten 
years ago, and has made no change, serenely 
unconscious of the fact that this is equiva- 
lent to the fact that he has not had an idea 
in ten years. He who believes to-day what 
he believed a year ago may as well order his 
burial robes—his place is in the cemetery. 
Mr. Gladstone was alive and eager, and his 
growth registered itself in changes. _Provi- 
dence marched on, and the _ statesman 
marched on with Him. In his youth Glad- 
stone was a pioneer, and in extreme old age 
he was still a scout, opening up new paths 
in the wilderness. He was an optimist, an 
innovator, and through all the smoke of 
battle and defeat he saw afar off the final 
victory. 

Reviewing his political career, Lord Salis- 
bury has said that Mr. Gladstone will be 
remembered less for his political achieve- 
ments than for his Christian ideals in poli- 
tics. His whole career was devoted to the 
attempt to reconcile politics to the Sermon 
on the Mount, just as John Stuart Mill tried 

326 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


to reconcile politics with political economy. 
Therefore the reforms that Gladstone pro- 
posed, the principles he advocated, register 
his attempt to carry political legislation up 
to the level of ideal morals. In his first 
book on church and state he lifted up an 
ideal standard, and boldly asserted that the 
state must have a conscience, and having a 
conscience, will be the better for taxing 
itself for the support of a state religion. 
Then came the free-trade struggle, in which 
he threw himself against the landed inter- 
ests of his family and his class, joining Cob- 
den and Bright in a movement to open the 
ports of England to the grain markets of 
the world. Having heard of the sufferings 
of political prisoners in Naples, he deter- 
mined to give up his holiday and investigate 
the question. He found means to visit the 
prisons, and saw these patriots in their dun- 
geons. Having searched the question to 
the bottom, he addressed a letter to the 
whole civilized and Christian world, in which 
he denounced this treatment of political 
prisoners as a blot upon civilization, reli- 
gion, humanity, and decency. He affirmed 
that the rule of Ferdinand was the negation 
327 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


of God erected intoagovernment. Through 
these letters he won from the Italians the 
credit of being ‘‘one of the founders of free 
Italy.’”’ 

Then came his repeal of the taxes upon 
education, his movement for popular suf- 
frage, the disestablishment of the Irish 
church, the movement for national educa- 
tion, his plea for Bulgaria, for home rule in 
Ireland, for the universality of the tenant- 
right custom, and last of all he lifted his 
shield above the oppressed in Armenia and 
Crete. Against his own landed and heredi- 
tary interests he made himself the client of 
the poor and lowly. He was disinterested, 
and had a magnificent disregard of popular- 
ity, and therefore proudly independent. 
He achieved the distinction of being one of 
the most cordially hated men of his era. 
With the simple ingenuousness of a child, 


he believed that ideal Christianity is the only *' 


practical politics. Therefore, where he be- 
gan his career there he ended it, affirming 
that England could lead the grand proces- 
sion of the nations only as she herself walked 
in the paths of religion and peace that Jesus 
Christ had opened. 

328 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


But that for which Mr. Gladstone will be 
chiefly remembered is his characteristic as a 
Christian scholar in politics. What color is 
to Raphael, what music is to Mozart, what 
philosophy is to Bacon, that religion was to 
Gladstone. His earliest passion and his 
latest enthusiasm was the passion and en- 
thusiasm for the character and teachings of 
Jesus Christ. An indefatigable student of 
Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, the litera- 
ture of which he was most fond was the 
Bible. As the knights of the Round Table 
served King Arthur, so, but far more faith- 
fully, he sought to serve our ‘‘Great Mas- 
ter Christ.’’ Statesman and financier, he 
was also seer and disciple. No Puritan was 
ever more severe in his emphasis of method 
and habit in his Christian life. So scrupu- 
lous was he in his recognition of the Sab- 
bath day, that, though four times prime min- 
ister, he absolutely refused to receive upon 
the Sabbath one of the government officials, 
or to discuss any political crisis or measure. 
Going into the pulpit on Sunday to read 
prayers in the church of Hawarden, each 
morning of the six week days he also made 
his way to the same little church to bow 

329 


Great Books as Life-Teachers 


while the rector read daily prayers. When 
prime minister for the last time he brought 
an old coachman up to London for medical 
treatment, and having found suitable quar- 
ters, he charged his physician to send him 
word should a crisis come. The end came 
at an hour when Mr. Gladstone was in an 
important discussion with Sir William Har- 
court. In that hour the prime minister 
dropped everything, and hurrying to an- 
other part of the city, he lent his old servant 
comfort as he passed down into the dark 
valley, and this servant died while the prime 
minister of England was praying to the 
Eternal God, who is Lord of death and life 
alike, just as, while his own son read the 
solemn prayer, he himself passed on into 
realms of happiness and immortal peace. 
Great as Gladstone was as orator, scholar, 
and statesman, he was greater still as a 
Christian. With all the enthusiasm of a 
young soldier for some noble general, of 
a pupil for some artist master, he poured 
forth all his gifts and ambitions at the be- 
hest of his divine Master and Saviour. 
Gladstone belonged to a race of giants, 
not only because he was great in himself, 
330 


The Christian Scholar in Politics 


but also because long companionship lent 
him something of the majesty of his divine 
Master. For the secret of the success of 
this hero who was at once orator, scholar, 
and statesman, is the secret of the Messiah. 

Noisy to-day are the skeptics, but should 
we mention the name of some one of these 
doubters best known for talent, and multi- 
ply his work a thousand-fold, yet, set 
over against the sublime achievements and 
the massive character of Gladstone, he would 
seem as a mud hut over against a marble 
house. The lesson of this great life is that 
the most splendid gifts, opportunities, and 
ambitions should be given to Him who 
said, ‘‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
one of the least of these my brethren ye 
have done it unto Me.”’ 


33! 





INDEX 


PAGE 
nel ec 15 
Os oat a 119 
4éschylus _-_ 73, 89, 91 
Agamemnon -__-__--- QI 
wxesteragam® ....____ 97 
OS CE Ee 47 
Animated bookworm 96 
Oe e co. 55 
(SO ae 42 
Apollo of beauty 47, 64 
Re eee oe Se 144 
Ascent of Man -_-_._ 223 
PRIS MStINe —.......- 18 
Bacon, Francis._.22, 33 
89, 193 
Baldasarre__--65, 69, 73 
6, 77 
meets Tito _....--. 75 
denounces Tito... 77 
(41 hl hy Cs pe 83 
Peewee 22 
Bardo de Bardi-__-67, 70 
COATS ite) ae 78 
Barnett’s social 
settlement in 
Whitechapel 
Uo a gt alate aR 38 
Beauty, real __...._- 54 
and simplicity_---. 55 
Tos A 54 
an interior quality 54 
eee 2 


Beecher (H. W.) 18, 33, 35 


333 


PAGE 
Beecher’s defense of 
evolution oo. 33 
Berea ees 47 
Religion. sess 44 
Besant, Walter -_-_- 25 
Bible, Tennyson’s 
quotationfrom__ 162 
literal interpreta- 
On OTe 2 21 
Book of Nature-__-_- 214 
BOG e tune eed 97 
RS OOM Gene tock oh eae 18 
Browning----- 17, 26, 181 
ce Lap TaN staat bay Eig sien 55 
BUN Vata eas 32 
Burns, Robert-_---33, 35 
55, 185 
BYTOD tao s one 35, 189 
BEL Cpr BERS ea ates 18 
CadnGnsesuoe sk ts 32 
CALTON ees os 68 
Carlyle_22, 26, 27,39, 42 
Carlyle and Tenny- 
BON ae es 150; 372 
on Burns--_-_--- 188, 196 
Gathedral cc 0s 49 
Lore Waa Wee RAM 70 
Change in the spirit 
of English writ- 
Cre ChOioe een ac 24 
Chidracter: 3-523 59 
Character.<...-- 164, 226 
lacking in Burns. 189 


Index 


PAGE 
Chillingworth,Roger 32 
Wereeance mes la. 103 
RACEIO tee eee ona 24 
ity perils orce so. . 231 
Christ’s enrichment 
Ottalliiitec ces 35 
CO rishine hae 36, 51, 141 


loveanddeathof_. 85 
Christ of Tennyson’s 
Faith tee were ere 147 
Christ’s presence the 
stimulus for all 
TUtUTe ages 3.6. 35 
Christ’s touch upon 
poverty, mar- 
riage and war__ 34 
Christ’s touch upon 
work and wages 35 


Consciénce 106 
juggling with___ 183 
Constantinople _-___- 79 
Countess of Anjou- 30 
Cosette; 225025 2s 146 
Costermongers of 
Londons sc. 241 


Cromwell’s view of 
the? Pa ritan 
preacher’. 2222 32 


Dante_.17, 64, 89, 93, 120 


Darwin 4 eee eens 153 
Davide esa 63, 114, 141 
David’s Confession. 95 
Death and eternal life 222 
De Quincey acre. 193 
Development, arrest 
OLS ns ier aaae eat 222 
Dimmesdale-_-_--... gI 
scholare4e- 2.253% 98 
conscience ....--- 106 
pleaccwee tae IOI 
eloquence ~__- --.- 112 
scaffold, -dnicoce lo 113 


Dimmesdale tri- 
umphs)ius-seee 
sickness a2. coe 
confessess2l_ eee 
dies 2 ae 
Dickens 2.22 o3.5 
Diffusion of the beau- 


Dives 222 
Divine Comedy-119, 
Divine Heart-______- 
Donatello J 2222 
Doubt, Tennyson’s 
place in dispel- 
ling -------- 155, 
Dramatic scene_____ 
Drummond, Henry- 
reconciler of re- 


gI 


158 
100 
207 


ligion and science 212 


conception of crea- 


tion... "2 
Dryden ..222seenee 
Edison, ....c222seeee 
Edwards, Jonathan_- 
Elijah 0: .Jeeeeee 21, 


Eliot, George -23, 25, 
Elisha. ..Ssc0nee gue 
Emerson -- --- 26, 38, 
Emerson and Carlyle 
as prophetic 
seers (sean e eee 
Epictetus 2. eee 
Erasmus 22S oueee 
Evolution, early 
stages Of ic. 5 tee 
middle ground-_-_-_-_ 
Christian =e 
Evolutionary growth 
of mineral, vege- 
table, and animal 
life ullUyeaoeeee 
Expansion of life, the 


219 
24 


29 
92 
27 
64 
17 
go 


26 


55 
32 


212 


215 
217 


19 


33: 


Fact stranger than 


Index 


PAGE 


PON Je 141 
Fallacy of the pessi- 

mist’s idea_____- 18 
antiie) ...5.-.- 118, 146 
Pe Gee hits. ono 5- 5 138 
Ug 1 tao 24 
Fingers of eternal 

PUNE od 83 
Florence ---_.- 58, 67, 68 
ROmCr S3ris._-__... 47 
Forward movement 

of christianity, 

1) a 34 
eeeUCRS 45... 73 
Kriendship ........- 200 
AN es (ae 7 a 32 
SeeeEt so ...--9 5K 165 
Genius and responsi- 

ae ee 197 
ip 167 
German race -....-- 89 
PeDDO C= 2... 22, 40 
Gladstone ---17, 153, 309 
OT Ges) ean 38, 60, 67 

Tennyson’s faith in 160 
BMErUiO . 3s ots 52 
sa gust... .....~.- 75» 149 
will not forget His 

i CS ee 60 

sets keepers to 

guard the living 60 
God’s continual pres- 

ime geese tS 5 16 

nearness to His 

people of old_--_- 15 
Goethe -.-_- - 23.03 R OG 
Goodness more than 

Been Sia 38 


Great benefit to the 
poor of the new 
tendency of in- 


PAGE 
vention and of 
BEG eames 29, 30 

Great Heart --_.128, 129 


Greek learning --71, 89 
GUlizotecere lone oa 32 
Hamletes ce Scnew sd 58 
Plampdensh 2350735 
Hawthorne 90, 91,94, 95 
Heart that feels 

deeply, thes. > 22 
He saved others, 

Himself He can- 

NOt, SAVesc os 146 
Hebrew peoples __-_ 89 
FHestene goes ya 109 
PLOMIOES ars a treme 89 
Hugo, Victor -...25, 120 
Pint Weigne 22 te 35 
phew (2) ited at aye 208, 221 


Idylls of theKing 120, 153 


De Ys ee Sa re ae 119 
Immortality ---.__.. 161 
Independence Hall__ 57 
Influence, uncon- 
BOIOU Se cee 169 
Inspiration the com- 
mony Silt. 6 oc 15, 16 
TFOUPA CE ere 98 
taly/sipt) Peters <__2.)'57 
James Henry------- 22 
FaNert, shot wo. ee 143 
GANG Soa to 21, 22,. 23 
Jobn’esision=__ sa sa 
johnson, Drea 03 40 


Kant and the moral 


la Ws ae sea oes 93 
KGats Mee anon Soe 40 
Kingsley, Charles._ 25 
Ring Arthur cons 163 


335 


Index 


PAGE 
King James) oso 32 
Ring ean Ge le ats 121 
Lady of Sorrows-_--. 99 
Lamps of architec- 
TUG. Cu OL 45 
Lancelot ohn eu ob 172 
Law of obedience_-_- 52 
MCA EM (cit oy eee 54 
PTAVIEY 2 soe 52 
resistance 22 es 52 
SRCTINCE aL Line 54 
Tether 51 
Lazarus seo 18,122 
Leisure, duties of_-_- 233 
Les Miserables___56, 119 
Liberty, no. Secu case 52 
for planets or seas 52 
iddoni ilo wer eee 18 
Lies, the careless lie 50 
child’evanie te ee 50 
patriotic suse 50 
weak man’s __---- 51 
Life, place of-2.2-0 163 
spiritual not spon- 
taneous Cle S 222 
Life’s deadliest enemy 50 
Lincoln ae. 17, 35, 153 
Livingstone, David - 249 
Childiotis weiss 54 
Loan associations___ 241 
Lodging houses -_-. 242 
London ticle aoe 122 
Longfellow -_-_--_- 17) 00 


Lord Mayor’s day_-_ 122 
Love, all enduring__ 101 
purifying power of 171 


.of  Livingstone’s 
SErVaNnts ows 304 
Lowell ______- 26, 28, 90 

lesson of the pres- 
ent and future._ 28 


PAGE © 
Luther \2ca0ae a 
Lying, foundation 
stones Jc. ciao 49 
columns ieee 49 
tiles USC ue 49 
Mammon’) coe 44 
Man embryo ----_--- 224 
Marble Faun__----- gI 
Marins ee 148 


Materialism of early 
19th century--_-_ 158 


Mazzine Ula 38 
Mecca 4 2.0 67 
Men, ten-talent ____- 184 
Message of Ruskin, the 27 
Milton’. 2S eee 23 
on genius Ve. 198 
Paradise Lost__58, 89 
119, 120 

Modern painters____ 38 
Montegut, M.cueeace gI 


Moral genius that is 
brave because it 


is pure, the_.___ 23 
Moseanis ou 15, 162 00a 
Motley) 22.3350 go 
Music as redemptive 

power ...2,,0s8. 201 
Napoleon) i.) oan 194 
Nathan i235 ae 63 
Nature tooo eae 95 
Natural law in spirit- 

ual: worldull 218 
Nellie’s hope -ii2i22 70 
Nemesis). 322 ee 72 
New era for the 

church, age 33 


New enthusiasm for 
humanity, the. 25 

New leaders for new 
emergencies.... 21 


336 


Index 


PAGE 
Nightingale, Flor- 
Suce a oh 45... 35 
Novelists as prophets 
and seers._....- 24 
Obedience-__-.____-- 52 
10 Be 1] ee aaa 53 
Ou look CASES 122 
Parliamentary re- 
ge Shs a 246 
Parthenon _--.-.._- Ly Paes: 
tS ia 2/2251 23 
32, 35 
Pee a 119 
Rerietes cot ook ol 57 
Pessimistic view in 
literature and 
sic, tHe 5-225 17 


Pessimistic view in 
law,theology, 
and creative 


work, the -___-- 18 
Peter repenting ---_ 141 
Pilgrim’s Progress._ 63 
Pony, the. 5-.-_- 99 
DS ain 57, 166 
Poet, place and pow- 

GMOs cule 154, 176 
Pome Vecchio. .... . 81 
Re Neen oe ol 24 
Poverty, refining 

mower. Of) 20 2 284 
Oh ee apa 161 
Preachers as divine 

PAU DCTR owas. 32 
Prodigal son--_-_-_---- 63 
Punishment of van- 

ea ee ae 58 
Porn eran. 2. 92 

Soils: Ae GN ae a 99 
Oo 8 a Re Ill 
Cc, eles 23 


337 


PAGE 
Remorse Vos be I 
TR OtROr 7s eros 138 
Release from old 
dogmas, the _--_ 34 
Religious faith of 
enn YOM ae 44 157 
Religious faith of 
Livingstone __-- 302 
Repentance; 22-0 173 
Robertson of Brigh- 
COT) Sos Susie ad 32 
PUOMIAN CB os hal 217 
RROMOIA Vere A cee 71 
Romola’s love for 
MATOIMMIGS <n ae 79 
Rosalind 22020502 2 55 
Royal society and re- 
Mion PA ye 218 
Rucellai’s palace__-__ 77 
Rusking. 222 26, 27, 166 
seven lamps ------ 39 
the apostle of gen- 
tle words. +... 39 
loving nature--___- 37 
modern painters._ 38 
Sacrifice, law of... 5 
Salisbury on theism 21 
Same principle in in- 
dividual life, the 
(principle of 
progress) ---.20, 21 
DAD NATCO oo 2. 81 
ne Eh a kl ea ERR 95, 141 
Saul of Browning-.__ 181 
Savonarola __.22, 35, 84 
Scala palace___----- 68 
Scarlet Letter 64, 88, 99 
Schools of Shaftes- 
[ehh delta Se MER, AL 240 


Science, limitations of 209 
Scientists versus 
seers 


Self-sacrifice as law- 
peneca ty ese 
Septimius Felton -_- 
Seven laws of life__-_ 
Shaftesbury, Lord, 
self-denial of__- 
Shakespeare_-17, 58, 
HN =) BU ghee ta one eA 38 
Sin, involving power 
wrecking Burns_- 
Sins, are seeds___75, 
Smith, Sidney ----_- 


wep ighay Ce} « Mbgapeierses acing, 40 
Society’s greatest 

pers iu webs = 
woctatesy: sae 355 


soul) laws of. ube. 
recovery) Of i252 
Spurgeen 4 See 
Stairway of red-hot 
marbles ee 

St hauls ceo eee 
Stanley, Augusta -_- 
Stanley ae ee 
Submerged class_-_-- 


Tendency of inven- 
tion and the me- 
chanical arts, the 

Tennyson--_-_-_- 17, 26 

death(or eee 

Tennyson’s' lament 
over Burns-_-___- 

Tenements of Lon- 


Theology and sci- 

CNnCe eas haus 
Thoughts fj2. sees 
Tintoretosrenne 49, 


Index 


PAGE 
225 


24 


PAGE 
Tito. 222 Coe 63 
meets, ‘Tessa/77220 73 
growing influence 70 
marriage 2e0s tous 71 
denounceéed)->o eee "7 
a traitor) Soo soeeee 80 
Tito’s selfishness... 68 
Tony bee: ja. eee 41 
Tragedy of Saul____ 183 
of Burns Jia eae 188 
of del Sarto_J2a 192 , 
of De Quincey-_--- 193 
of Napoleon_-_-_--_- 194 
Transgression, self- 
punishing _____- 102 
Twist, Oliver______- 25 


Uncle Tom’s Cab- 
in. 7. Soe ee 25 
Universality of aids 


to comfort and 
convenience, the 31 
Valjean, Jean__---_- 124 

committed to the 
galleys .. aaa 125 
tries Providence__ 127 
the. bishopsilo age 128 
in despair. cogeeee 132 
tempted file oeeeem 135 
His Gethsemane-_-_ 145 
“Tl see dipht cae 150 
Vandal yo. ose 59 
Venice... spe ae 47 
Verona). eee 49 
Via Dolorosa_-_____- 98 
Virgil ..0- oe 89, 91 

Vision that sees 
clearly, the. 222 21 
Von ‘Rile_-_ <i. ae 47 
Wagner’ 2. eee 17 
Washington ______-_- 35 


338 







ae « iy 


ea ame nme ~ 31 
pul eters. ---- 44 
Webste er, Daniel.17, 9 
Wes le. pe 
Willard, Frances..- 35 


eons. ---- 20 
ee: . 


World’s progress up- 
ward through 
aid of man,the_._ 20 
AChOpnonoe sso sae 50 
Youth, tragedies of. 191 
MOF) ce eee ss | 22 


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